


Stages of Development

by jasminepeony14



Series: Code Luna [2]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Language, Mpreg, Potential Trigger Warning: sexism and prejudice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 64,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25436821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasminepeony14/pseuds/jasminepeony14
Summary: Newly mated, Levi and Nico navigate both Levi's pregnancy and the growth of their relationship.  Meanwhile, the fallout of the Code Luna continues, and Grey Sloan's surgeons are forced to examine themselves and to determine the kind of doctors--and people--they want to be.
Relationships: Atticus Lincoln/Amelia Shepherd, Atticus Lincoln/OFC, Casey Parker/OFC, Jackson Avery/Dahlia Qadri, Nico Kim/Levi Schmitt
Series: Code Luna [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842457
Comments: 160
Kudos: 369





	1. Month One, Part 1: Blastocyst

The aroma of pancakes gently beckons Levi awake, and even though the morning hunger pains are quickly setting in, he does not want to rise quite yet. The jersey sheets are layers of silky warmth and are infused with the musk of his alpha, the notes of bergamot, pine, and cardamom seducing him to stay within the grasp of slumber. It is safe here, between these sheets. Safe, warm, home. 

Beyond this bed? Beyond this bed, it is a cold, gray Monday, and from beneath the duvet, Levi can hear the rain drumming steadily against the window glass. Why would he want to go out there, out there back to Grey Sloan, where he will almost certainly be the object of groping glares? Why would he subjugate himself to rumor and slander? Why, when he can just stay right here?

“Babe.”

The bed dips, and a weight settles besides him, its heat easily penetrating the duvet and sheets. A hand finds the mound of Levi’s shoulder, grasps it from the other side of the blankets, and gingerly gives it a shake.

“Babe,” Nico hums again, “it’s time to get up.”

“Nngh,” Levi groans, tugging the linens closer to his body. “Five more minutes.” Nico chuckles.

“We don’t want to be late for our first day back in two weeks.”

“Why not?” Levi grumbles petulantly. “It’s five more minutes people aren’t going to be staring at us as if we’re escaped zoo animals. Or rats on the lam from the lab.”

“No one is going to look at us like that.” Levi yanks the duvet down to his neck, sacrificing heat so he can properly slap Nico with a dubious glower. Nico smirks in concession.

“Okay, _some_ people probably will. But who cares? We did nothing wrong.”

“Not everyone is going to see that way, Nico,” Levi mumbles. Sighing, he decides to bite the bullet and pushes himself up from the mattress. The sheets slide down his naked torso, and cold pricks his skin like a million needles.

“I know we did nothing wrong,” he continues as he gazes down at his hands. “I know that it’s not our fault, what happened to Brody and the Delucas. …to Dr. Grey. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty. And it doesn’t help that some people are going to think I’m guilty too. Even if it isn’t my fault, I’m still part of the reason Dr. Grey got fired. Twice.”

“We’ve been over this,” Nico replies patiently. “Dr. Grey is the sole reason she no longer has a job. Whatever her intentions, she put so many at risk, including you and our baby.” Reaching out, Nico presses his palm against Levi’s stomach. Smiling, Levi lifts his right hand and lays it over Nico’s.

Speaking strictly scientifically, Levi knows their baby is only a collection of cells—a miniscule capsule of genetic material. Still, it’s the “baby,” their baby, that seed that hasn’t sprouted yet. An infinity of potential is crammed into a space smaller than a millimeter, and it is already means everything.

“Come on,” Nico beckons, withdrawing his hand. “Breakfast is getting cold.”

“Okay, okay, getting up,” Levi relents, nodding. “I got to take a shower too.” Suddenly, Nico looks alarmed, his dark eyes going wide.

“Shower? Why?” Levi’s brow scrunches in mild confusion, and his cheeks flush.

“You know _why._ ”

“You smell fine.”

“I smell like _sex.”_

“You smell like _me._ ” Levi blinks and then giggles. _Oh_.

“You’re such an alpha,” he replies, grinning. “I’m pretty sure everyone knows I’m spoken for.” Nico looks far convinced, pained even, and it occurs to Levi that perhaps his mate is more nervous than he is letting on. His grin shrinks to a smaller, more empathic smile. “I’ll use your body wash, okay? And I can wear one of your coats during the drive there.”

Nico relaxes some and leans over to peck Levi’s cheek. He doesn’t withdraw though immediately after, though, and allows his lips to graze Levi’s ear.

“Thanks, babe. And if we have time, I’ll give you a big, dark hickey to cover all bases,” he whispers lowly. Levi’s groin instantly goes hot, and he playfully pushes Nico away before his lower half can commandeer the driver’s seat.

While Nico leers devilishly and stands, Levi, first taking a deep breath, exhales, throws off the sheets, and braves the cold.

Beckham is wearing red today. Apple red, to be exact, bright and unapologetic. It goes aggravatingly well with the unrepentant smirk adorning her snow-white face when Tom discovers her lounging in the chair behind his desk.

“Really?” he drawls. “I haven’t even had my coffee yet.”

“And that’s my fault how?” Beckham quips as she crosses her legs. She has on black stilettos, the kind that have long, thin daggers for heels. Giving his umbrella a good shake, Tom sends a deluge of rain down to the carpet.

“Can we not this morning, Natalie?” he asks tiredly. “I have a full schedule, and I am soaked. I need to change and then track down some decent caffeine. I do not have time to box with you right now, verbally or otherwise.”

“Oh, believe me,” Natalie chuckles dryly, “I consider this office a biohazard—I have no desire to be here any longer than necessary.”

Of course she would bring up Teddy a minute in and do it in such a way in which she doesn’t actually mention Teddy’s name. He could rise to the bait, let the pain and rage that has been his shadow for the last couple weeks take the wheel, and give Beckham the opening she seeks to lecture him on sexual harassment and abuse of power. Or he could swallow the ache that bubbles up like bile when the thought of Teddy—i.e. his every other thought—darts across his mind and force Beckham on to the purpose of her presence.

With much difficulty, he chooses the latter.

“Well, let’s make this as expedient as possible. What is it?”

“You are aware, I’m sure, that Dr. Kim and Dr. Schmitt return today.”

“Of course, how could I not? You and I both have been in a billion meetings with the Bonding Bureau about whether this hospital is a ‘safe workplace’ for a mated couple. I’ve done more tap dancing the last week than a chorus girl does in her entire career to make those suits happy. So, yes, I’m distinctively aware that Dr. Kim and Dr. Schmitt return to work today.”

“I cannot stress enough, Tom,” she says, all humor vanishing from her voice, “how important that today goes seamlessly. The Bonding Bureau isn’t happy, and they don’t actually think we are ‘safe’ workplace. They merely don’t have enough evidence to pin the tragedy of errors that was the Code Luna fully on the hospital. They are biding their time, waiting for us to screw up. And if your doctors hold true to their track record, the Bureau won’t have to wait long. They may not even have to wait a full twenty-four hours, seeing as the new crop of interns start today. …And some not so new ones.”

“Not that again,” Tom dismisses. 

“They were fired for a reason,” Natalie presses. Fluidly, she rises and pops a hip. “And we have already seen what happens when you allow fired surgeons to return.”

“You think it was an easy decision?” Tom barks. “It is not like we have hordes of medical students pounding down our door, not anymore, not after all that has happened in the last year. Our resident program currently has a lackluster reputation, so rehabilitation is needed. And we can start by giving second chances to those we might have given up too quickly on.”

“Technically, it’s the third chance with one of them,” Natalie corrects. “I looked at his employee file, and it might as well be one big fucking red flag—”

“Natalie,” he cuts off, “I know what I’m doing.”

Her frost blue eyes flick deliberately to the couch, hold it in their cold glare, and then swing back to him.

“Let us hope so,” she murmurs, “because if he or the other one screw up as half as epically as they did the last time, they are not the only ones who will get the boot.”

“We didn’t teach them properly the first or second time around,” Tom insists as calm filters back into his senses. “There was too much interpersonal drama. Attendings were distracted, not providing proper supervision—”

“Is this about Simms?” Thrown, Tom must give his head a firm shake to regain his bearings.

“What?”

“Simms, your personal resident,” Beckham clarifies needlessly. “I heard he needs some insanely difficult surgery to restore full function to his arm, and even if everything goes perfectly, he will still need months of PT. It will be months before he will enter the OR again as a surgeon, if he’s lucky. Do you blame yourself? Do you think that if you hadn’t been canoodling with Altman—‘distracted’ by personal drama—you would’ve been able to stop him before he ever crossed paths with Kim? You couldn’t save him, so you’ll try to save failed interns to make up for it?”

Her conjecture is ludicrous, a ton of psycho-babble bullshit. And yet…and yet Tom can’t fully debunk it. He does, to some degree, blame himself for Blake’s condition. His poor protégé is laid up in a hospital bed, left with little to do except wait and pray that this isn’t where his dream and career end. Maybe if Tom hadn’t been busy with Teddy and joined the search for the in-heat omega, he could have stopped Blake before he ever made it anywhere near the seventh floor.

And worse still, he has nothing to show for this lapse in judgment. In the end, Teddy still walked away, and they each now spend their nights alone.

“Let me put this in terms you can appreciate,” he says. “Every day, you have your underlings spend hours squashing frivolous lawsuits. There will now be two less lawsuits they need to waste their time on.”

“You know how your underlings get their kicks by cutting into people? My underlings get theirs by crushing lawsuits and souls. So don’t act like you are doing my department any favors here—"

“Natalie,” he interrupts sharply. “Give me this. Please.”

Pursing her lips, Beckham sighs.

“…Fine,” she finally concedes. “But they are on the strictest of probations, and if they so much as sneeze in a way I deem hazardous to this hospital, they are gone. _Permanently_.”

“Agreed. Are we done?”

“Not quite. Two more things. I understand you will soon be making offers to Dr. Grey and Dr. Deluca’s replacements. The non-disclosure agreement has been added to HR packet, so make sure the new hires understand that if they don’t sign it, they don’t work here. And that’s coming straight from the Bureau.”

“Got it,” Tom grumbles. “And the third thing?”

“Griffin Ford,” Beckham says, and the floor and walls go topsy turvy. There’s no way she could know, right? She can’t possibly know.

“What about him?” Tom manages thickly.

“I know you have a meeting with him today for a photo op and press release. I also have it on good authority one of his tech companies is trying to ‘revolutionize’ the matchmaking app with a super accurate pairing algorithm or whatever. Point is, I’m sure Ford has heard about us having a mated couple on staff. He’s too rich and well connected not to. I get he has given a very generous donation recently, but if he probes, shut it down. He and his people are to go nowhere near Doctors Schmitt and Kim.”

“I get it—keep people from harassing the mated couple lest we incur the ire of the Bonding Bureau. Again. Now, will you go, please? I have work to do.”

“Going,” Beckham announces as she walks past him. “I need to go delouse myself now. Seriously, this office is one giant petri dish of bodily fluids.” However, she pauses at the door, and Tom can tell by the way she stiffens that she has again put all joking aside. 

“A word of warning,” she murmurs over her shoulder. “Don’t think that just because she hasn’t said anything that Catherine has forgotten about your little tumble with Dr. Hunt. She hasn’t, and you might be old friends, but at the end of the day, she’s the boss. She isn’t going to tolerate anything that puts her business at risk, so if I were you, I’d tread carefully, because you’re skating on very thin ice.”

Then she goes, the sound of her stilettos echoing against the hallway tile with every step.

It is humiliating, Dahlia Qadri thinks vehemently, that she has been lumped into the same category as Vikram Roy. The man is an idiot, overbearingly overconfident until pressure hits, at which point his incompetency becomes glaringly obvious and—not an exaggeration—fatal. They are not the same, he and she. _She_ was fired for mouthing off in a one-off fit of hero-worship. _He_ got fired for killing a patient, the culmination of a long-standing pattern of negligence.

So how is it that they are back at Grey Sloan together, both granted a chance at redemption through the same wave of compassion? Dahlia has heard through the grapevine that the hospital’s reputation has taken a few blows within the last year, a series of scandals eroding its once gleaming veneer of prestige. The firing, rehiring, and then indefinite suspension of Dr. Grey hasn’t helped, but Grey Sloan still possesses considerable clout. Their applicant pool can’t be so shallow that they would stoop so low as to take Roy back on…right? He must be here as a result of some misguided attempt to rectify perceived teaching fails, but you can’t teach someone who is so self-assured that they have nothing left to learn.

Really, he isn’t worth this much thought. Stupid men do only one thing when given any amount of rope.

No, she should be focused on reintegrating herself with her peers. Academically speaking, she has kept on pace with them, having continued her education at an ignominiously plebian hospital in Michigan, but she is under no delusion that the quality of their education has been the same. She had to make do with decent instructors but no one of any repute, while they had continued to learn from the leading trailblazers of the medical industry. She will have to work double time to prove that she belongs in their ranks.

Because the way Parker and Helm are staring at her now, it’s clear they do not believe she belongs here at all.

“Uh, hi,” she greets, hands twisting nervously behind her back. “It’s been a while.”

“…Yeah, it has,” Helm replies cautiously as she folds down the collar of her lab coat. Parker, who is leaning against a locker, politely nods. Dahlia shifts her weight. She hadn’t expected a welcome party, but she had not anticipated such a cold reception either.

“Dr. Koracick called me,” she feels compelled to explain suddenly. “He offered my job back—”

“We know,” Helm interrupts coolly. “Dr. Bailey told us you and Roy were coming back.” Her tone hits Dahlia like a door slamming in her face. There is no invitation for Dahlia to speak again, no spark of interest in what she has been up to since their last encounter. Helm has decided she knows all she needs know to about Dahlia, and any effort on Dahlia’s part to share more will be shut down faster than a diner with a rat infestation.

Cowed, Dahlia is starting to back away when the locker room door squeaks open, permitting a mop of wavy brown to pop in. Immediately, Helm brightens like the sky when sun bolts break through a cover of gray.

“Schmitt! Welcome back!” Helm cries as Levi fully enters the room. Glasses-less, he is wearing a black overcoat that is clearly too big for him, and his scent is not quite what Dahlia remembers. Too heavy and woody, it drips from him as if he had just emerged from a pool of it.

“Wow, Schmitt,” Roy, grinning, sneers from behind Dahlia. “Fun night?” Realization bowls into Dahlia, destroying her filters and any good sense of propriety she possesses.

“ _Oh_ , you reek of _alpha_ ,” she blurts out. Schmitt’s bashful grin breaks, and regret comes swiftly. “I mean, I—”

“Kim taking the time to cover you in his scent is nothing to be ashamed of, Levi,” Parker interjects, his voice kind yet firm. “It is only natural that he does.”

“In fact, if he hadn’t, he and I were going to have a serious problem,” Helm adds. Lightly grasping Levi’s elbow, she maneuvers him away from Dahlia and guides him until he is between her and Parker and partially blocked from Dahlia’s view.

“So it’s true,” Roy mumbles. He is quieter now. Subdued.

“What?” Dahlia demands, turning toward him. “What’s true?”

“Didn’t you wonder what that non-disclosure in our hiring paperwork was for?” he asks. 

“I thought that was HIPPA compliance stuff.”

“HIPPA is for patient confidentiality,” he points out. “That non-disclosure specifically protects employees’ privacy. I heard the hospital added it for the sake of a mated couple on staff.”

“M-mated?” Dahlia scoffs. “Did you binge on rom-com’s recently? Mating isn’t actually a thing.”

“Come on, Qadri,” he sighs. “You’re one of the smartest people in our class. I know you can see it. Look.”

So she does, and Roy is right—it is all right there in front of her. Schmitt, red in the face but happy, well-protected in the cloak of his alpha’s scent. Parker and Helm using their bodies to form a shield around him.

“Cloaking and shielding,” she identifies aloud, half disbelieving her own voice. Cloaking and shielding are archaic behaviors, ones as old and absurd as the mythology of mates, and, per the fairy tales, were innate responses to the same condition. “He’s pregnant.” Roy nods.

“And they’re a pack,” he says, gazing somberly at the trio, “whether they know it or not. Watch—the attendings, as the elders, will be worse. They’re a pack, and we’re just interlopers.” 

“Interlopers?” she pushes back indignantly. “It’s not like we’re strangers, like the new- _new i_ nterns are.”

“We left,” Roy insists with a shake of his head. “We were kicked out, and if instincts like cloaking and shielding are at play, then so is grouping, and it doesn’t matter if someone invited us back. We are still not _pack_. There’s a little voice in inside them reminding them over and over again that we’re not one of them. Not anymore.”

Resigned, Roy sulks back toward his locker, but Dahlia stays where she is, her eyes lingering on Helm and Parker fussing over Schmitt as he starts to disrobe the overcoat. She is not like Roy. She does not flee in the face of adversity or stay down when shoved to floor. She will prove her metal and reclaim her place. She may be standing far on the sidelines now, but she promises herself that she won’t be here for long.

The house, as it is most mornings, is a whirlwind of frenzy. Children dallying, hoping to delay another day of school for a few more precious minutes. Maggie trying to rally them with a tight smile and strained vocal cords. A newborn wailing for his mother’s milk. A sleep-deprived Amelia stumbling over a discarded toy and choking back curses. Link, too shiny and too chipper, making a beeline for the door.

From her kitchen table, Meredith watches him leave with placid curiosity.

“Where’s he going?” she asks Amelia.

“The hospital,” Amelia hisses over her son’s subsiding cries. She sinks down into the wooden chair beside Meredith. “The lucky bastard.”

“Why? Did something happen with a patient? I thought he was on paternity leave for another few weeks.”

“Kim starts back today,” is the deadpanned reply. “Link wants to make sure he is caught up on all Link’s cases.” A beat, and she blinks. “Oh shit, sorry—”

“It’s fine,” Meredith says lightly. “Kim’s name isn’t taboo.” Jostling the baby to her shoulder, Amelia snorts bluntly, and Meredith’s eyes narrow. “What?”

“Oh nothing,” she mumbles. “Except that you’ve been stewing for the last two weeks in a deep, deep black hole of _sad_. I mean, I get it, of course. Your boyfriend is in an asylum—”

“Psychiatric hospital.”

“His eyes were gouged out—”

“ _Temporarily_ damaged.”

“You were fired—”

“Suspended.”

“And your medical license is danger of being revoked for the second time in a year. Kim and Schmitt play a central role in all of those things, and you want me to believe that hearing their names doesn’t make you want to punch a hole in the wall?”

Yes, Meredith thinks, because hearing their names doesn’t make her feel anything. She doesn’t feel anything. The world is spinning around her, life marching on as it must, and she has no opinion on any of it. No feelings to speak of whatsoever.

“They were acting on instinct,” she replies, “and, as far as the world is concerned, they were completely justified in their actions. Being upset with them is a waste of time and energy.”

“Well, I wish you’d waste some energy,” Amelia grouses. “All that energy, and day after day you just sit there, while I’m running on fumes. If you are not going to use it, give it to me.” Her lips tilting up into a half-hearted smile, Meredith angles her head so she can get a better view of baby Derek’s cherub cheeks.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way.”

“Fine, but, Mer, I’m serious. You can’t sit here forever. You need to do something. Are you sure you don’t want me to ask Link to talk to Kim—”

“No,” Meredith cuts off simply. “The lawyer was very clear—it can’t look like in any way that I am trying to influence them. So, no thank you. It will work out. It always works out.”

Amelia does not have the energy to mask her doubt, and Meredith does not have the will to call her doubt out. 

The world spins, and Meredith watches it swing around and around its axis.

It will work out. It will all work out.

Because it always does.

Because it has to.


	2. Month One, Part 2: Give It to Me Straight

“Nico!” Link, all Cologate grin, booms as he pulls Nico into a bear hug. He pats Nico on the back with a firm, open palm, which he then uses to squeeze Nico’s shoulder when they pull apart. “Mates, uh? Congrats, man!”

“Thanks,” Nico replies, beaming back. “And congrats to you too! How does it feel, being a new dad?”

“Honestly? Exhausting. And terrifying. This tiny human relies on you for absolutely everything, and they want what they want when they want it. They have no sense that you are a separate person with your own separate needs, and they will suck you dry of every last drop of energy and then some.” Nico’s face goes slack, and, chuckling, Link lets go of him and rests his hands on his hips. “I also wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, being a father. You’ll find out soon enough.”

Regaining some of his composure, Nico smirks.

“How did you know?”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure the whole hospital knows. And if on the very off chance they didn’t, they do now. I passed by Schmitt on the way up here, and I’ve been around you enough to know that he smells way more like you than himself. I was always thought cloaking was something only storybook princes did to protect their true love from the villain, but it turns out ortho fellows do it too.”

“…I just couldn’t help myself,” Nico admits. Rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and balancing a cup of coffee in the other, he sinks down into one of the large, padded chairs that dot the attendings’ lounge. “I thought we were ready to come back—I was looking forward to it, because my mom has been blowing up my phone about wedding revenues and houses in good school districts, and at least surgery gives me an excuse to screen some of her calls. But, then this morning came, and I nearly locked Levi in our bedroom. The idea of letting anyone else near him was maddening. And I _know_ that Levi is his own person, not a possession, and I _know_ he can take care himself. But I still want to throttle anyone who so much as looks at him wrong. Did you feel this way when you found out Dr. Shephard was pregnant?”

Sandy blonde eyebrows knitting together, Link reaches for the coffee pot and begins to pour himself a cup.

“Truthfully?” he says as he watches the steaming, life-giving elixir curve into his mug. “I was more confused than anything else. It wasn’t exactly planned, and Amelia and I wouldn’t pair until later on in her pregnancy. But I can say that when the Code Luna started, and my instincts were…in control—” Placing the coffee pot back onto its heated stand, he turns around, mug in hand. “—I wanted to kill everything that touched her. Literally. Perhaps, because you and Schmitt are mated, you’re now more aware of your instincts, and you might have to work a little harder to keep them in check.”

“That makes sense,” Nico sighs. “But it’s hard. Levi is worried people are going to retaliate for everything that happened, especially with Dr. Grey, and I’m worried he has reason to worry. On top that, there are those who act like we owe them answers, and they’ll cross whatever lines they think they need to get them. I want Levi to have a pregnancy with the least amount stress possible, and that’s already a tall order given that he’s a surgical intern.”

“We are all doctors here,” Link points out. “None of us are going to push Schmitt harder than he can handle.”

Nico wants to believe his mentor. He wants to trust his colleagues will be mindful of boundaries and stay within the lines of professionalism, but it’s a test they’ve already failed once, and if it happens again, Nico doesn’t trust himself to stay logical. His inner beast raises its hackles at the mere thought of Levi wronged or offended. He would ask heaven to help them all if that were to come to pass, except heaven had stayed absent while Nico ripped Blake Simms’ arm clean out of its socket.

So, there is little to do except to urgently hope that no one pokes the bear.

“Dr. Kim, Dr. Lincoln, good morning,” Dr. Hayes drawls as he strolls in, his greeting riding the buoy of his Irish ictus. “I didn’t realize you were both back today.”

“I’m just here for the morning,” Link clarifies. “I wanted to catch up Nico up on some of my cases since he’ll be handling my service while I’m on paternity leave.”

“Ah, I see. It’s good you’re taking time to enjoy your baby now while you can. They don’t stay that sweet and easy for long. Some day soon, you’ll blink, and suddenly they’re a sullen sixteen-year-old who thinks you’re the lamest thing since ever. You’ll both be counting down the days to college.”

“Forget teenagers, it’s toddlerhood you have to watch for,” exclaims Dr. Avery. Dark circles marring his otherwise striking green-hazel eyes, he staggers in, closely followed by an equally haggard looking Dr. Hunt.

“Four bed time stories, five rounds of lullabies, a horde of stuff animals, and it still took two hours to get Harriet to bed last night,” Dr. Avery laments. “Then, this morning she had the granddaddy of all tantrums because I was out of CoCo Puffs. And, just now, she and Leo got into a tug-of-war over a stuffed bunny in daycare.”

“Hey, hey,” Dr. Hunt intervenes, nodding toward Link and Nico. He smiles, but it’s a feeble, fading grin. “We don’t want to scare these two off parenthood. Link just became a dad, and Nico has almost the full nine months to go. Let’s let them enjoy the glow.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Dr. Avery recalls as he directs his exhausted gaze to Nico. “You and Schmitt are expecting. Congratulations. Hey, by the way, if it’s a girl, let me know. I’ve got a ton of baby clothes Harriett’s outgrown, a lot of them practically new. My mom went _way_ overboard when she found out she was going to have a granddaughter.”

“Thanks man,” Nico replies, “but I’ve got my own mom who’s already going way, way overboard. Besides, before I start stockpiling baby supplies, there is something I need to get Levi first.” Link cocks an eyebrow.

“What?” Clearing his throat, Nico prays he isn’t as flushed as he feels.

“A ring. Once they met, our moms immediately launched into wedding planning, and of course I want a proper wedding with Levi. But a proper wedding ought to be preceded by a proper proposal, and I want to make it special for Levi. I want him to know that just because we’re mates doesn’t mean I am going to take him for guaranteed. I just…I’m not sure how to go about it. Do you guys have any suggestions?”

The room goes silent, the awkward kind of silence that screams like an alarm siren triggered by a trip wire. Abruptly, Dr. Hunt pivots on the ball of his foot and flees, leaving Nico to glance questioningly at Dr. Avery, Dr. Hayes, and then lastly Link.

“Was it something I said?”

To a degree, Teddy can understand the fascination that had gotten the better of the Delucas when it comes to Schmitt and Kim. The former stands before her, bright-eyed and eager for her tutelage. He does not look any different than before the Code Luna and in fact appears to be nothing more than the sweet-natured, endearingly clumsy intern he has always been. Except the illusion of that appearance is quickly eroded when Teddy catches a whiff of him, and the scent of alpha slaps her across the face. Clearly, Kim is not inclined to permit anyone to forget that Schmitt is strictly off limits, and even though he is nowhere in sight, he is right beside Schmitt, protecting him from all ill-intent.

Teddy has been chasing after that kind of devotion all her life, reluctant to resolutely shed one attachment for another lest she lose her one true great love. “FOMO” is the sum and summary of all her romances. It is also her undoing. The root of her loneliness. And she must admit, if this little intern’s blood and body held the key to breaking the chains of her solitude, she would be tempted to seek access to them in any way she could get it. Sorely tempted….

“…Dr. Altman?” Teddy blinks and finds Schmitt staring at her anxiously. “Did you hear me? I asked if you were ready to start rounds?” Instantly, her chest clenches with guilt at the sight of his guileless expression.

“O-of course,” she stutters. Glancing up, she catches a glimpse of gold-red hair passing by on the other side of the nurse’s station. “—in just a minute.”

She then one-two steps around Schmitt and dodges a meal cart as she dashes to cut Owen off at the pass. He stops cold, his blue eyes flash freezing to ice.

“This is not a good time, Teddy,” he says through a clenched jaw.

“Then when is a good time?” she demands, her vocal cords tightening. “Two weeks, Owen. It’s been two weeks since you have looked at me, let alone deigned to speak to me! How am I supposed to tell you how deeply, deeply sorry I am if you won’t even return my texts? Because I am sorry, Owen. I am so, so sorry—”

“Teddy!” Owen snaps. There is something vicious and eviscerating on the tip of his tongue. Teddy can tell by the way he grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut for nearly ten seconds. When he opens them, they are the shade of the artic.

“I do not want,” he growls, “to talk about what you did and who you did it with right here. This is our place of work.”

“Then when and where can we talk? You can’t avoid me forever. We have a child together. We need to figure things out, for Allison’s sake if nothing else.”

“Figure things out?” Owen repeats incredulously. “I had it figured out! I thought we were good. I thought we were great! I thought we were going to get married and raise our family together. But, obviously, _you_ were having second thoughts. _You’re_ the one who needed to figure things out, and, instead of talking to me, _you_ chose to figure it out with Koracick.”

“I was scared!” Teddy whispers harshly, her eyes flitting around to assure herself no one is in hearing range. “When Amelia said that her baby might be yours, I freaked out, okay? I saw the dream of us, our future, falling apart. I was afraid you were going to choose her—”

“—so you chose Koracick first?” Owen sneers. His fingers curl into a vibrating fist, and he, shaking his head, takes a step away from her. “I told you I can’t talk about this now. I have rounds.”

So does Teddy, so she lets him go.

Historically, betas have always served in positions of support. Neither natural born leaders like alphas nor the hearts of the hearth like omegas, betas took charge of everything in between. Lieutenants and mid-management, butlers and harem guards, such were their roles in the society of old, and, really, little has changed. Taryn has always known that betas who stood at the top of the pyramid like Dr. Koracick are the exception, and that she might spend her entire life stuck in the middle ground.

But, right now, the middle ground is the only place Taryn wants to be, because somebody needs to stand between Levi and the entitled idiots of the world—idiots like the fifth-year residents, an insipid, pretentious bunch who had never once before thought to acknowledge the interns’ existence. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why they want to sit with her, Casey, and Levi all of a sudden.

“Are these seats taken?” asks Liz Hartford, the queen bee of senior residents. Taryn looks to the empty set of chairs on the other side of the table and then up at Hartford. Tall, tan, and thin with wheat blonde waves, she has the look of a Cali girl but possesses the personality of a shark, and her bleach white teeth gleam like fangs as she grins a smile that fails to reach her blue-green eyes.

“Yes,” Taryn supplies flatly. Hartford’s smile shrinks a nearly imperceptible fraction. Nearly.

“…Oh, really?” Taryn stabs her salad so hard her fork clanks against her tray loud enough to turn nearby heads.

“Really.” The corner of Hartford’s mouth twitches, and for a moment, Taryn thinks she might actually snap her jaw and bite. But, instead, she and her posse slowly back away and slink off to a table in the corner of the cafeteria. 

“Vultures,” Taryn hisses before shoveling lettuce and tomato into her mouth.

“Thanks,” Levi says sheepishly. Looking down, he twirls his spoon along the rim of his bowl of soup. Casey and Taryn both eye the hearty, practically untouched broth.

“Don’t you have a valve replacement later with Altman?” Casey queries. “You should eat.”

“Especially since you’re now, you know, incubating another human being,” Taryn adds around half-chewed food. Still, Levi doesn’t lift his spoon, so Taryn sets down her fork. “What? Did someone say something stupid?”

“No,” he sighs. “No one says anything. They just _stare_ , like them.” Without looking up, he nods toward Hartford’s table, and as Taryn’s gaze follows, it crosses paths with Hartford’s predatory glare.

“Just ignore it,” Taryn urges. “Give it a few days, and one the mid-years will do something extraordinarily dumb, and people will obsess over that. You and Kim will be old news.”

“Explain this mid-year thing to me again,” Levi asks as he finally looks up, and Casey shrugs. 

“It’s not really clear to us either. From what I can gather, there are essentially going to be two intern classes a year—interns like us who start at the usual time of July and interns who start mid-year in January. Supposedly the ‘mid-year plan’ is meant to cater to med students who graduated in December. ‘Adds flexibility to the resident program’ I believe is the phrasing Dr. Koracick used.”

“Please,” Taryn snorts. “The truth is this hospital is hemorrhaging residents like a punctured jugular, and we’re no longer a first choice residency placement. The ‘mid-year plan’ is meant to scoop up the December grads who have no other options or who are desperate. Qadri and Roy are case in point. The upside, though, is that they’re bound to make us look like superstars.”

Levi sags again and releases his spoon, giving up the pretense of eating. Taryn curses inwardly.

“No, don’t,” she admonishes. “Don’t go down the self-blame spiral. Grey Sloan’s rep is not on you.”

“But it was on Dr. Grey,” Levi argues. “And Dr. Grey—”

“—isn’t on you either,” Wilson finishes as she plops down with a plate piled high with fries. She is immediately followed by Dr. Lincoln, while Casey slides to a seat to his left, allowing Kim to fill the fresh vacancy beside Levi. From her angle, Taryn can spy the hand Kim slides over Levi’s thigh as they smile softly at each other.

“No eye-fucking at the table,” Wilson sing-songs, holding a fry between her fingers like a cigar. As if suddenly remembering they weren’t alone, Levi and Kim jolt up in their seats but do not separate.

“What?” Levi, dazed, murmurs.

“Stop undressing each other with your eyes,” Wilson elaborates. “If you have to get nasty, that’s why man invented on-call rooms—for actually undressing.” Levi goes bright red but manages a smirk.

“Jealous?”

“Obviously,” Wilson scoffs. Chuckles begin to go around the table, only to stop short as Levi’s pager goes off. Glancing at it, he scrambles to his feet.

“Altman’s surgery got moved up!” he cries. “Gotta go!” He pecks Kim on the cheek and then jogs off. Taryn glares at his soup bowl, still full and unconsumed.

“At least grab a protein bar!” she yells after him before swinging back to Kim. “You’re going to have ride him about proper nutrition. The boy is the type to get so caught up in something that he’ll forget to eat.”

“Duly noted,” Nico replies. He peers over his shoulder, checking that Levi has truly gone, and then turns again to Taryn. “I need your help. I want to propose to Levi—”

“Propose?” Wilson repeats. “Why? You’re mates. The powers-that-be bound you at birth. Just go down to city hall, sign the certificate, and call it a day. Why bother spending money on a ceremony when you can just have a kick-ass honeymoon?”

“Says the woman who cut her honeymoon short to _work_ ,” Dr. Lincoln points out. “Some people like romance.”

“Like Levi,” Taryn says as she picks up her fork. “The fact you want to make a big deal about it at all will make him happy and blubbery. Don’t make a spectacle of It, though—that’s what the wedding is for. Keep it intimate and thoughtful. And roses. Make sure there are a shit ton of roses. Do that, and you can’t screw it up, by which I mean—” She points her fork at the space between Kim’s eyes. “— _don’t_ screw it up.”

Unperturbed by the looming utensil, Kim grins.

“Thanks, Taryn. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Damn straight,” she replies. “it’s literally my job description.”

Saving lives and alphas’ assess—just another day in the life of your average beta.

Vikram just wants to make it through today without incident. He knows better than anyone that he probably doesn’t deserve to be back here at Grey Sloan. A man died because of him, and Vikram relives that death night after night, the wail of a heart going flat shattering his nights and scarring his days. So he doesn’t blame the nurses for staring at him with hardened eyes or the attendings for pretending he simply isn’t trailing after them. 

They can’t hate him anymore than he hates himself.

If he had it his way, he would hang up his white coat for good and pay his penance. But his life is not his own. There are expectations he can’t shed, and fathers he can’t face unless he fulfills them. So, his plan is to keep his head down and suffer his deserved shame in silence. He’ll wear a plastic grin and shuffle through scut and whatever other scraps are tossed his way until his time is served. He doesn’t need or want respect.

He only wants to get through this with no one worse off for it.

So, believe him, he has no desire or design when he overhears Dr. Koracick in the middle of what sounds like a conversation of conspiracy and covert operations. He is just trying to deliver some lab results, and an absent mind and a wrong turn lead him to a remote hallway, deserted except for two men standing toe to toe.

“—what will it hurt?” a stranger’s voice croons. “I already know they’re on your staff, and I will find out who they are eventually. If you just tell me now, we save everybody time and aggravation.”

“I’ve told you,” Dr. Koracick grounds out, “I neither can confirm nor deny personnel information.”

“Might I remind you, doctor,” the stranger says darkly, “of the very large donation I gave this hospital?”

“And I may remind you, Mr. Ford,” Dr. Koracick sneers with equal malice, “that very large ‘donation’ bought you a very convenient aneurysm. So, if I were you, I wouldn’t rock that boat, because we’ll go overboard together. You got your pictures for your publicity stunt, so kindly get out of my hospital. And leave my staff the hell alone.”

The stranger draws himself up to his full height and tugs on his jacket’s lapels but does leave, storming past Vikram, who pushes himself up against a wall, arms crossed and hugging the lab work against his chest.

Spotting him, Dr. Koracick, face as unreadable as a graveyard angel, merely sighs.

“…How much did you hear?”

“Enough to know that man wants to know about Kim and Schmitt,” Vikram answers honestly, “and that he probably bought you off somehow.” Dr. Koracick nods and takes a step closer. Vikram has nowhere to go.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” his superior begins, “but, for the record, I made a judgment call—a lie to save lives. And that money did save lives, but it remains to be seen if it was a line that shouldn’t have been crossed.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything, Dr. Koracick,” Virkam, swallowing, assures. “The only reason I am here at all is you.”

“That also remains to be seen—if bringing you back was worth it.” 

“I’ll keep my mouth shut,” Vikram says bluntly. “And if anyone comes poking around about Schmitt and Kim, I’ll keep my mouth shut then too. I…I don’t want hurt anyone.” Again.

Dr. Koracick’s eyebrow twitches, and his scent sours. Vikram would give anything for this wall just to swallow him whole.

“Dr. Koracick.” A woman in elegant, apple red comes around the bend, the click of stilettos against tile heralding her arrival. “Our four o’clock is waiting in the board room.”

“Right,” Dr. Koracick mumbles as he withdraws. He bids Vikram farewell with a curt nod. “Dr. Roy.” He leaves, his gait fast-paced yet nimble. The woman, though, lingers a moment.

“So you’re Dr. Roy,” she muses. “You’re not exactly what I pictured. Not all. Actually, this might be the first time I’ve seen an alpha scared witless.”

“M-ma’am, I—” Vikram stammers, but the woman holds up a long, pale finger.

“Don’t call me ‘ma’am,’” she instructs. “Jesus, do I look that old?”

“No, no, you’re—you’re—” Beautiful. She’s beautiful, of course, yet in a way that is sharp and cold. He has no idea who she is, but her aura exudes authority and power, and his sense of self-preservation demands he bare his neck and hope it’s a convincing enough plea for mercy.

Her painted lips arch into a lovely semper.

“It’s a pleasant surprise,” she says before going. “If you’re scared, it means you must have an inkling of your failings. And that you care. Maybe you won’t be a complete train wreck after all.”


	3. Month One, Part 3: Thorns and Roses

From what Andrew can see, the walls of Wayland Psychiatric Hospital are not white but gray. Polished, pacifying gray. He stares at them, willing them to expand or contract. To move at all. But they stand straight and still, and he is heavy. So very heavy, like lead is weighing down his blood. 

“Andrea?” His sister’s voice warbles, stumbling in the fog that surrounds him. “Andrea, please.” Shifting his eyes from the wall to her makes him feel like Sisyphus struggling to roll a boulder up a hill of hell.

She smiles at him, or at least he thinks she does. The lines of the world are still very blurry.

“Did you hear what I said?” she asks. “If you complete treatment and a diversion program, they won’t press criminal charges. The prosecutor understands that you aren’t…well.”

Not well. People keep telling him that he is “not well.” What a demure way to put it. So gentle and sweet, as if they really believe it will soften the blow.

_You didn’t mean to, not really. You weren’t thinking straight. You weren’t_ you _. You aren’t well._

So tenderly spoken as they all handle him with kid gloves. But Andrew can’t be deceived even as they all lie to themselves.

He is his father’s son. Brimming with promise and brilliance and certifiably out of his mind. So easily fooled by his own grandiosity, how he can ever trust himself again with the life of another? His judgement will also be suspect, meds or no meds, because meds keep him more than grounded—they bury him, drag him to the bottom of a lethargic, freezing sea and dull his every sense.

On them or off them, Andrew is but a caricature of who he was. Of all he could have been.

Not well? No, he is more than that. He is upended. He is undone.

“A couple more weeks, and they’ll probably discharge you,” his sister is chattering. “You can come home soon.”

She is smiling, Andrew is certain now, and her smiles grow wider. Hopeful. He turns away, fixing his stare back on gray. Coarse, ugly, honest gray.

It takes time, the psychiatrists tell Carina. Time to find the right balance of medications. Time for the mood swings to slow in their revolutions. Time for sense and self to resume their place and function.

Her brother will come back to her, they promise her, just give it time.

Well, luckily, Carina has an abundance of time. Jobless and her medical license in limbo, Carina suddenly has hours where she would have had consultations and surgeries, and as it turns out, chores and errands and leisure can only fill a fraction of the free time. Maya helps her spend the hours when she can, mostly at night, but Maya has a station to run and literal fires to extinguish, so Carina is still left with a suffocating surplus. An abundance of riches Carina never wanted.

“Dr. Carina Deluca?”

Vaguely, she is aware she has seen the man who stops her in Wayland’s parking lot somewhere before. He keeps a respectable distance and his hands in the pockets of his suit pants as to not appear threatening, but Carina still shifts her purse until it sits between them like a shield. 

“Yes,” she answers cautiously. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, you can,” the man replies. “And I can help you. My name is Griffin Ford—”

“The tech billionaire?” she asks, the pieces clicking quickly into place. She is not terribly interested in technology if it is not related to her field, but she now recalls seeing Ford’s smirk on a news clip here and there in her social media scroll as well as on a magazine or two while waiting in the checkout lane. Plus, she remembers, he took over an entire floor at Grey Sloan not all that long ago. He put the capital “v” in “V.I.P.” 

“That would be me,” he chuckles. 

“I’m sorry,” she hedges, “but why do you even know my name?”

“It’s good business, Dr. Deluca, to do your research on the people who have already been where you want to go. You see, I’m developing a groundbreaking app for matchmaking—”

“Stop!” Carina cries, shaking her head. She begins to backpedal. “I know where you are going with this, Mr. Ford, and the answer is no—”

“I only need names, doctor.”

Only names? Carina would laugh if she didn’t feel as if she had just been sucker punched. Careless lips uttering only names is what set off the domino cascade of this entire mess. If Carina had only been more mindful…. If she had only taken a few precious minutes to look past her own righteousness…

“No,” she refutes again with a punctuating shake of her head. “No.” She propels herself into a march, making her escape as fast she can short of breaking out into full on a sprint. Ford’s feet do not follow, but his voice carries across the blacktop.

“It would change everything,” he says, “knowing what makes up the mating bond. And if you are worried about your license—and your brother’s license—well, there are vey few things I can’t afford. Minimum, I can certainly make sure you take care of yourselves even if you’re never allowed to pick up scalpel again. Give it some time, doctor, and think about it.”

Miranda knows she has been a bitter pill most of this week. She can’t help it. Everything has been running a little too smoothly, and call it superstitious, but experience has taught her that the most damaging blows come when you settle in and let your muscles relax, leaving you completely defenseless. So Miranda does not ever relax, not completely, and she never has to wait long until her reservations are justified.

And there is no way she is getting through the first week of Schmitt and Kim’s return without somebody doing something _stupid_. The universe is not that kind, and the universe proves her right, using its most favorite torture device.

Residents.

“Seriously,” Miranda overhears as she passes by CT, “you’d think the interns were Schmitt’s personal bodyguard service. They surround him twenty-four seven like he’s POTUS and not some little useless omega. A couple questions aren’t going to break the kid.”

“Are you sure?” another voice queries sardonically. “Four doctors got sacked to protect his little ass.”

“It is a deliciously little ass, isn’t?” muses a third. “Kim the lucky bastard gets to bend that over any time he likes. Bet Schmitt makes the sweetest noises when he is getting pounded.”

“Think Kim’s the type to share?” drawls the first voice. “I wouldn’t mind taking a whack at it—”

A growl fast maturing into a roar interrupts the nauseating exchange, and Miranda nearly jumps out of her skin when she discovers Kim standing her bedside her. His pupils are dilated to pitch black saucers, and his lips curl back to display grinding teeth. The residents, pencil neck fifth years, scramble at out of their seats, and their eyes, uncertain who is the deadlier threat, volley frantically between Kim and Miranda.

“Ch-chief!’ the second resident yelps. “Chief, we—”

Kim moves to lunge forward, and the fifth-years recoil, bracing their hands over their faces. Miranda manages to grab Kim by the scruff of his scrubs and yanks him back. 

“Don’t. Speak,” she barks at the residents. “Let us be clear on a couple counts. One, the only reason I’m not letting Dr. Kim pummel you right now is because we cannot afford to shut down CT for deep cleaning. Two, sexual harassment is unequivocally prohibited, as stated in the employee handbook you all received when you were interns. Those comments are textbook verbal sexual harassment, grossly inappropriate and just gross.”

“Chief Bailey,” the first one says as he smooths out the wrinkles of his pants, “we—” His jaw promptly snaps shut when Miranda shoots him a volcanic glower.

“I am going to take Dr. Kim somewhere to convince him that he won’t accomplish much by removing your inwards from your abdominal cavity,” she continues, “so I will deal with you later. I suggest you spend the time thinking of a valid reason why I shouldn’t hand you your pink slips when I get back.”

Having four or five feet on her, Kim is not easy to corral, but Miranda manages to pull him along the corridor until they reach a secluded stretch of linoleum flooring.

“Breathe, Dr. Kim,” she orders. “Breathe.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and visibly inhales, his broad chest rising with the fruits of his efforts.

“That…,” he whispers, “that can’t stand. What they said.”

“And it won’t,” Miranda assures. “But people are going to talk, Dr. Kim. They are going to say all kinds of things, ranging from ignorant to plain idiotic, and you are going to have to figure out how to deal with it without throttling throats and ripping out tongues, no matter how loudly your instincts tell you to.”

Nodding reluctantly, Kim takes a few deep breaths, and when he opens his eyes, they have returned to human size.

“Good,” Miranda sighs. “Now, I have to go consult with legal about those fools who call themselves fifth-years.” Despite the dread that precedes having to venture into legal’s domain, Miranda smirks knowingly. “You, on the other, have plans—plans that, I understand from my husband, involve an ambulance.”

“No, no, Kim’s not ready!” Wilson is hissing into her smartphone. “…Maybe ten, fifteen minutes more minutes? ….Well, think of something, Helm. … I don’t know! Ask him about Dungeons and Dragons and dunes or something equally as nerdy. Or show him a funny cat video! You’re a surgeon—figure it out!”

“Playing keep away with Schmitt?” Fumbling her phone, Wilson whips her head to the left and looks down. Blake plasters on a grin.

“Simms?” she balks. “What—you… You look—”

“Like my body was broken in five places and therefore have no business being out of bed?” he supplies, leaning back into his wheelchair seat. “You would be correct. I got one of the mid-years to take me out for my ‘daily stroll’ and then I ditched him somewhere around oncology.”

“Koracick is going to kill you when he finds out,” she says, snorting.

“If he finds out,” Blake amends. “And you think a mid-year not even a month on the job is going to tell the Chief of Surgery’s boss that they lost his resident?” Wilson shrugs in concession.

“Not if they want to live to see tomorrow.”

“Exactly. So long as no one tells Tom, no one dies. Anyway, this game of keep-away, can I play?” Wilson’s face sags, and Blake would normally find her discomfort amusing, but he knows her hesitation stems from anticipation of his own pain. It is no fun—the pity flashing across her light brown eyes.

“I know what is going on,” he reveals cavalierly. “The nurses know all, and mine’s a notorious gossip.”

“And…and you want to help?” Wilson asks dubiously. “Even after…everything?”

‘You can say it, Wilson: even after I made a bid to become Schmitt’s pair and Kim ripped me a new one? Sure, why not? I mean, what’s the point of getting mad about it? We were both heatstruck, and I didn’t stand any chance anyway.”

That is what he tells himself when it’s quiet hours and the lights are dimmed to near darkness. What is the use of cursing fate’s cruel sense of humor? Because fate is extraordinarily cruel. It let him fawn over a man it had decided at the beginning of time would belong to another. Admittedly, it is the very kind of prank Blake might pull, plucking an out-of-tune melody on tender heartstrings.

Maybe Karma has finally found the time to deal him a hand.

“Besides,” he presses on, “I’m bored out of my mind. Distracting Schmitt has to be better than counting the ceiling tiles in my room again. There are thirty-eight, by the way.”

“If you want something to do, Dr. Simms, how about instructing some of the interns on proper patient care? Apparently, it is an area they severely lack in.”

Blake groans as Tom grips the push handles of his wheelchair.

“I guess playtime’s over,” he laments dramatically to Wilson, “and it hadn’t even started.”

“We’ve been over this, Blake,” Tom lectures. “You are in no shape to do anything besides rest. You are a patient right now, not a resident.”

“If that’s the case, then you can’t order me around.”

“You’re right,” Tom agrees. He leans down and drops the volume of his cheery drawl. “That’s why I called your grandmother.”

Blake’s cheeks blanch, but he grins as Tom starts to roll him away.

“Give Schmitt and Kim my regards, will you Wilson? There’s a good chance I’ll be cuffed to my bed for the foreseeable future. So, tell them ‘congrats’ for me, okay?”

He really is too good at this, Blake thinks as he is ferried back to the prison that is his room, saying such sour things so very sweetly.

Levi may not be a very graceful person, and he may have a regrettable habit of tripping over random objects, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t observant. He is a surgeon, and having a keen eye is a very necessary job requirement. So if Taryn and Jo think he hasn’t notice that they have been doing their very best to keep him miles away from the pit, they are woefully mistaken. He has been trying not to panic—there could be perfectly plausible, mundane reasons for their behavior. Maybe it’s all just in his head. Maybe Jo was telling the truth when she said it was a slow day in the ER and that his time would be better served in another department. Maybe Taryn really did need help babysitting a patient’s kid even though the kid’s cellphone seemed to have been doing a fine job of keeping the kid occupied.

But all that careful, calming reasoning goes out the window when Taryn asks him about the difference between the books and the movies when it comes to _The_ _Lord of the Ring_.

“Okay, what’s going on?” he demands. Taryn smiles nervously.

“Going on? Nothing’s going on—”

“You can’t stand it when I go down my ‘geek spiral.’ You say it makes your ears bleed, but now you are deliberately trying to set me off. So, what’s going on? Is it Nico?”

Fleetingly, Taryn bites her lip, and Levi’s heart floors into overdrive. 

“Is he hurt?” he squeaks breathlessly. “Is that why you’re trying to keep me away from the pit?”

“What? No! He’s fine—”

“Then what is it!” Taryn’s mouth opens and closes twice, fishing for her next words, and then her phone beeps. Checking it, she exhales audibly before looking up at Levi.

“Go to the ambulance bay,” she tells him. “And you’ll find out.”

With only this cryptic instruction, Levi books it to the ambulance bay, hoping down back stairs two at a time. When he arrives, he finds it oddly quiet. No doctors or nurses waiting on an incoming trauma. No paramedics taking a quick breathier, despite a rig idling in the space between the ER doors and the clinic. Levi almost turns to return inside when something floral grazes his nostrils. Odd, given that the city is in the iron fist of winter. He sniffs deliberately, and the fragrance, strong and definitely there, beckons him toward the ambulance, and he obeys, reaching for its backdoors with both hands.

Unlocked, they swing open, and Levi is immediately enveloped in roses. Hundreds upon hundreds of roses that fill every nook and cranny of the rig’s usually clinically silver finish. Red, pink, yellow, all the shades in-between and more, some pale green and cobalt blue.

And there, waiting in the myriad of rose blooms, is Nico, smiling softly and a hand outstretched.

Gaping, Levi slowly takes it and wades into the ocean of perfume. Absently, he notices the benches are flower free, decorated instead with simple cloths of white, and Nico settles him on one and then takes a seat on the other directly across the way.

“Nico,” Levi gasps, scanning the ceiling of the vehicle. How did Nico get a carpet of roses up there too without a single petal being out of place? “What…?”

“I know that a rig,” Nico begins, “doesn’t exactly scream ‘romantic,’ but I couldn’t think of a better place to do this. It was in one of these that I first realized it was going to be you. When I first saw that everything I would ever need and want was right in front of me.”

Standing, he reaches for a lavender rose in the wall behind Levi, slowly pulls it free, and holds it before him.

“I was enchanted,” he goes on, “You were absolutely enchanting.” He offers the lavender flower to Levi, and once Levi takes it, he plucks an orange bloom next. “Desire took over, desire I don’t think I’ll ever be ever to quench, because—” A yellow rose hemmed in red follows as the orange is passed to Levi. “—I fall in love with you a little more every day, and I promise—” Deep crimson and sunrise pink. “—I will always love you. I will always remember to appreciate you because—” Sunflower yellow. “—there is no one who brings me the kind of joy you do. You—” Azure blue. “—are my impossible made real. You are everything and so much more. I cannot wait—” Pure, dove white. “—to meet our child. To be a family with you and live our lives together. So, Levi Daniel Schmitt—”

Nico lowers himself to bended knee and then slips a hand into his pant pocket. Warm tears welling in his eyes, Levi buries his blushing face into his fistful of blooms. The tears spill from underneath his eyelids, dotting rose petals as salty dew. A moment later, when he raises his head, a gold band nestled in a box of black velvet awaits him.

“—will you marry me?”

Levi leans forward—over the flowers, over the ring—until his lips find Nico’s. They kiss, first chastely, then heatedly, lips and tongue massaging and melding.

Abruptly, Nico pulls away, just a breath, his hooded eyes embracing Levi’s hazel gaze.

“Is…is that a ‘yes’?” 

Levi smiles.

“Yes.”

Nico rushes back in, and Levi welcomes him eagerly, their kiss hot, tender, and only beginning.


	4. Month Two, Part I: Nausea

Who knew that, when Levi applies himself, he is an astounding actor? Maybe people are so used to his face being an unambiguous portrait of his feelings that they do not think to question what they are seeing. He flashes a wide, toothy grin, and no one looks too closely. Well, no one, save for the one person he is hoping to deceive the most.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Nico asks for the third time this morning. As he gently cups Levi’s cheek, his brown eyes trace the contours of Levi’s features anxiously. “You’ve been looking a little pale the last couple of days. You’re getting enough water, right? And you haven’t been skipping meals again, have you?”

“Yes, Mr. Worrywart,” Levi sighs, leaning into his alpha’s touch, “I’ve been drinking water by the liter bottle, and, no, I haven’t a missed a single meal. Or snack. Or snack between snacks. How could I when you, Taryn, and Jo are constantly shoving food at me?”

“Sorry,” Nico chuckles as he lowers his arm. “I just…I worry, okay?”

“Well, at least for today, don’t,” Levi urges, squeezing Nico’s shoulders with both hands. “Today is your day. You need to focus.”

“It’s not that big of a—”

“You are removing the bones from both legs of one of the best soccer players in the world,” Levi drawls with a straight face, “deep-freezing said bones to kill cancer, and then re-attaching them to the superstar soccer player.”

Nico smirks.

“Well, when you put it that _way_ …”

“If you pull it off, you’ll become even sexier to all the headhunters who already panting after you, and you will be able to pick any hospital or team you want. You can act all calm, cool, and collected as much as you want, but I know you’ve been practicing for weeks. So, today, don’t worry about me. Focus on being the amazing surgeon you are.” Nico grins and offers a mock salute.

“Yes sir! You’ll be in the gallery, right?”

“Of course—like I would miss my alpha being an ortho-god in all his glory.” Nico’s smile doesn’t flag a centimeter as he goes, and Levi wishes the same could be said of himself, but once he turns a corner and is assuredly out of Nico’s view, his stomach rolls violently. It’s vengeance, Levi is certain, for being so rudely ignored this morning when he first awoke. And then at breakfast. And then again on the way to work. And then again in the lobby as he passed by someone who must have had a seafood buffet for breakfast.

Mercifully, he makes it to a trashcan before his stomach expels all of its contents, and cereal, milk, orange juice, and bile gushes out as if his gut were Old Faithful. He heaves and wretches, his stomach wringing out every drop of anything and everything, and just when he thinks he does nothing left, he heaves again. 

His knees weaken, and the trashcan takes on the brunt of his weight. He was right not to tell Nico yet, he thinks in passing. If Nico knew just how severe Levi’s morning sickness has been, he would’ve shifted all of his energy and attention to Levi and away from his all-important surgery.

He leans deeper into the barrel, the stench of his sick egging his gut on, and as his stomach rolls at the challenge, a firm hand spays itself on his back and begins to rub firm, smooth circles into his muscles. For a moment, he panics. Oh God, did Nico double back and find him upchucking half his body weight? His fear flees, however, as a warm, pleasant voice descends in a murmuring query.

“First trimester?”

Breathing heavy and slow, Levi manages to push himself up and turn his head sideways. The blush pink scrubs of Labor and Delivery come into view first and then gorgeous, obsidian skin. His gaze trails up until it finds a face possessing beautifully strong angles and deep set, piercing coal brown eyes.

“…ugh…yeah,” Levi mumbles.

“What anti-nausea meds has your OB prescribed?” the man asks as he helps Levi stand. Fully upright, Levi realizes that the stranger is just as tall as Nico, dwarfing Levin by a good foot. Undoubtedly, this man is an alpha, which is odd, because obstetrics and gynecology is one of the rare specialties dominated by omegas and bearing betas.

“I..I haven’t had my first appointment yet,” Levi admits, staring at his sneakers.” The man blinks, and the disapproval drips from his masterfully crafted cheekbones. “I’m barely into my second month, and my fiance and I—we haven’t found an OB yet.”

“You work in a hospital, and you haven’t found an OB yet?” the man repeats, his thick black eyebrows arching.

Truthfully, Levi has been too afraid to venture anywhere near Labor and Delivery. The female Dr. Deluca was well liked by her now former department, and Levi really doesn’t want to find out if her colleagues blame him for her downfall. So, he had ruled out Grey Sloan entirely as a potential provider of his prenatal care. Unfortunately, however, Grey Sloan consumes so many of their hours, so Levi and Nico haven’t had time to explore their options. It hadn’t been a big deal up until now—he is still so early in pregnancy, and the Bonding Bureau had offered its assistance in finding a vetted obstetrician—Levi only need say the word. But then Nico was tapped for a career making surgery, and Levi became resolute to ensure his success. So, when the nausea hit, he told himself to stick it out until after the surgery. A few more hours, and he will be in the clear and doesn’t need anyone second guessing his choices, especially an alpha he doesn’t even know.

Levi wipes his lips clean with the back of his hand and takes a step away.

“I should go,” he says distantly. “I’ll be late for rounds.”

“Wait,” the alpha pleads, his eyes softening sympathetically. “You’re Dr. Schmitt, aren’t you? I’m Dr. Caleb Evans. I’m a new attending for OB. It’s nice to meet you. I hear we’ve been expecting you eagerly upstairs.”

“Really?” Levi questions doubtfully, and Dr. Evans flashes a shock of pearly white as he smiles broadly.

“Really,” he affirms. “From what I’m told, I can’t blame you for keeping your distance. But I hope you will give us the chance to prove that the actions of one don’t reflect the beliefs of all.”

“I—”

“Okay, here we are!” Seemingly out of nowhere, like a sudden summer breeze dashing in, a petite Asian woman in attending navy plants herself in front of Levi. A little shorter than him the last inch of her height really comes from the bun of reddish brown hair piled a tad messily on the top of her head, and she, head down, is digging around in a plastic grocery bag. 

“We have some ginger ale, lemon lime soda, crackers, pretzels,” she announces. “Oh, and peppermint tea! Perfect for this terrible weather. Say what you want about the Midwest, but at least there I knew what the sun looked like. I thought everyone was exaggerating about the Seattle rain, but, no, they were all telling the truth—”

“Dr. Pham,” Dr. Evans softly interrupts, and the woman’s head pops up. It’s official, Levi inwardly groans. Attractiveness is part of the hiring criteria for attendings. Dr. Pham has a roundish face with pleasing plains that rise into plump apple cheeks framing a wide, lovely smile. Her eyes, though, a pair of glittering oak brown orbs, are really her best feature, and they beam at Levi as she hands him the bag.

“These did wonders for my twin brother when he had his first one. She is a terror, my eldest niece. Really, a menace to society, and she is only four. I had to get my car interior completely re-upholstered thanks to her and a pair of _safety_ scissors. God help my brother when she hits puberty.”

“Uh, thank you, Dr. Pham,” Levi replies.

“No problem,” she says, “but those are really only a stop gap. You should let Dr. Evans here give you a proper look over.”

“I appreciate the concern, really, but I can’t be late for rounds. It’s with the new Chief of General, and I don’t want to make a bad first impression by showing up late.”

“If that’s all,” Dr. Pham says jovially, “then no need to worry. You have a pretty good excuse in my book, and in this case, my book is all that matters.”

Levi stomach drops, and this time it has nothing do with the microscopic human growing inside him. Smiling all the while, Dr. Pham extends her hand.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Schmitt. I’m Dr. Dyugen Ha Pham, new head of General.”

“Have you meet her yet?” Amelia asks as she scribbles away on a chart. Maggie tucks a pen away into the pocket of her white lab coat.

“Who?” she responds 

“The new Chief of General,” Amelia clarifies. “Owen has. ‘Perky’ is the word he used. ‘Perky’ and ‘refreshing.’”

“Perky and refreshing?” Maggie echoes. “How perky? Arizona perky? April perky?”

“Refreshingly perky,” Amelia reiterates. “So probably perkier than two of them combined.”

“So she’s—”

“Terrible. A-ball-of-sunshine-terrible.” 

Yes, terrible, because that is what Amelia and Maggie have agreed upon. The new Chief of General, whoever they are and whatever their personality, is terrible, because they occupy a place that is Meredith’s.

“I know you think that Meredith might deserve this,” Amelia had told Maggie, “but can we at least agree that no one will ever measure up to her as Head of General?” Maggie, tired of debating the merits of Meredith’s suspension, had conceded on this point, because it is difficult imagining someone else standing in her sister’s place, running her sister’s department. It just makes Maggie furious when she dwells on it—how Meredith incinerated a burgeoning legacy in the name of misguided, arrogant love.

Amelia, on the other hand, has been unwavering in her support for Meredith. She understands, she says over and over, what is it like to lose your sense to something more powerful than you—drugs, tumor, and, yes, crazy love. She insists that Meredith got a raw deal and is the victim of a vengeful legal counselor who has been lying in wait for years, while Schmitt and Kim are unwitting pawns in the bigger conspiracy.

Maggie, frankly, thinks that is a load of crap. But the sake of peace and family harmony, she will do her very best to dislike the new head of General.

…Which may prove not all that difficult, if the brand new Chief of General Surgery is the small, bouncing ball of 8:30 a.m. energy approaching the nurse’s station with Link.

“Hey,” Link greets grinningly, “Have you ladies met Dr. Pham? She’s the new Chief of General. Dyugen, this is Amelia Shepherd and Maggie Pierce, Chiefs of Neuro and Cardio.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Pham says, her voice a high, twittering chime. “Dr. Shepherd, Link tells me congratulations are in order. A new baby boy! Derek, right? After his uncle, I imagine, Dr. Derek Shepherd? I have to say, I was a bit of a fangirl of your brother’s. His last paper on neuroplasticity had some really groundbreaking ideas.”

Amelia and Maggie deliberately glance at one another. That was an impressive amount of words in one very small breath.

“…Do you have an interest in neuro, Dr. Pham?” Amelia hedges, smiling tightly.

“Oh no!” Pham dismisses. “Brains are fantastic, intricate organs, but I am all about the guts. Speaking of which, I believe there is a bowel resection with my name on it, and I have to find my interns first—” Her rapid fire pace halts as a peppy, techno alarm goes off. She reaches first into her left pocket and retrieves a Smartphone, and, silencing the alarm, she then goes into her right pocket and pulls out a prescription bottle. She twists off the cap and shakes out a single pink pill.

Casually, in full view of her fellow chiefs, she downs the heat suppressant in a quick swallow.

“Okay,” she continues, as if never missing a beat. “Intern hunting we go. Remember, Link, mum's the word until after Dr. Kim’s surgery.”

Then, she is gone, skipping off jollily like a pony prancing in a field of daises.

“Okay, please tell me that she had five jumbo cups of coffee,” Amelia cries. Smirking, Link shakes his head.

“No,” he refutes, “I’m pretty sure she woke up like that.”

“No one has the right to be that…that _perky_ so early in the morning,” Amelia rebukes. “At any time of day! What is she? Spawn of the Energizer Bunny?”

“She is the first omega chief this hospital has ever had,” Maggie says, unable to hide the admiration fueling her words. 

“She was in line to be Chief of General at her last hospital in Missouri too,” Link adds. “Word is Catherine Fox attended a presentation of hers at a conference and was so impressed that she personally headhunted Dyugen.”

“She has to be impressive,” Maggie replies. “Do you know hard it is for omegas to rise in the ranks in any industry but especially medicine? And she’s young too. She has to be _brilliant_.” Amelia shoots her a reproving glare, but the pang of guilt Maggie feels is faint at best. She has to give credit where credit is due.

“Whatever,” Amelia mumbles before turning to Link. “What did she mean, by the way, when she said ‘mum's the word’?” Glancing about nervously, Link scratches the back of his head.

“Apparently Schmitt has pretty bad morning sickness,” Link explains quietly, “and he hasn’t told Nico because he doesn’t want to distract him from Sung-ho Park’s surgery.”

“Oh, you mean the surgery Kim stole from you?” Amelia says sharply.

“He didn’t steal it,” Link, exasperated, denies. “Nico did all the consults with Sung-ho while we were out on leave, and Sung-ho wants someone he’s familiar with doing the surgery. Besides, I’ll be in the OR.”

“Observing. Like an intern.”

“Like a proud teacher watching his student achieve mastery,” Link corrects, his tone frosting over. “It’s Nico’s surgery.”

“Is Schmitt okay?” Maggie cuts in quickly. She doesn’t like how brittle the air is becoming, dry and ripe for kindling, just like the air at home.

“I think he’ll be fine,” Link replies. “Dyugen gave him a few things to calm his stomach and then got him to go up to OB for a check-up.”

“That was sweet of her,” Maggie notes. Amelia glares at her again, and, again, Maggie ignores her, as does Link.

“She seems super cool,” Link agrees. He levels a cool gaze at Amelia. “You should give her a chance, with her being _new_ to everything.”

Amelia does not even dignify that with answer and instead stomps off. Link, sighing, shrugs apologetically at Maggie before walking away too, leaving her alone, her stomach twisting itself into painful knots.


	5. Month Two, Part 2: Fatigue

Meredith doesn’t bake. Even when it comes to the bake sales put on by her children’s classes, she shies away from flour and sugar, leaving the confectionary acrobatics to Maggie, who enjoys the mix of comfort and chemistry. But Meredith’s hands are not accustomed to idleness. To not cutting or slicing or stitching. So she does what she can do—measuring, whisking, mixing, blending, kneading, proofing, scoring, glazing. Muffins, cakes, breads, and scones start to slowly take over the surfaces of her kitchen. Ellis and Bailey are delighted by the growing bake good army, but Zola, older and too intuitive for her own good, eyes the sweets suspiciously. She knows her mother should not have this kind of time nor should be getting this good at making meringue, but she says nothing as Meredith flashes her a smile and shoves a warm treat into her hands.

Meredith is very fortunate that the child does not know what questions to ask. If she did, Meredith does not know how she would answer. All she does know is that she has a chocolate raspberry tart that will spoil if not eaten or refrigerated soon, but after twenty minutes standing on Carina’s doorstep, she still cannot bring herself to ring the doorbell.

Tart or no tart, she really shouldn’t be here. Her attorney has warned her repeatedly against contact with the Deluca clan, for it could be construed as collusion if the prosecutor or Bonding Bureau were to get wind of it, and additional charges are the last thing that she needs.

But, on the other side of this door is Andrew. Carina had sent Meredith a text late yesterday evening to notify her of his discharge, and Meredith had spent the night creaming and baking the tart’s crust, measuring out flour and butter with exacting precision to ensure a crispy yet crumbly texture. Then had come the chocolate custard, carefully whisked and chilled to sweet firmness and topped with a decoration of fresh, ripe raspberries, an intricate arrangement that had rapidly consumed the sun’s earliest light.

All that work, all those meticulously spent hours, wasting away with each wasted minute as she stands here before this closed door.

This is not a good idea. She should not be here.

And yet, here she is, unable to convince herself to walk away. So, it is not her own decisiveness that ends her dilemma, but the swing of the door from the inside.

Carina, barefoot and bare-face, stares tiredly at her.

“I was really hoping,” she says with her thick, rolling Italian accent, “you weren’t going to make me come to this door.”

“Carina,” Meredith replies. Her voice falters, clumsily searching for the right words. “…I made a tart. Chocolate raspberry—Andrew’s favorite.” Unimpressed, Carina shrugs.

“Why?”

“…Why?” Meredith echoes.

“Yes, why?” Carina repeats. “Why the tart? Why are you here? Surely you can’t be that selfish.”

“Carina! I—”

“You have to know,” Carina cuts off, her lips tightening into a quivering scowl, “that you simply being here hurts Andrea. And not just legally speaking.”

“I…” Meredith says. Her vocal cords strain, doing their best to produce some kind of sound, any sound. Anything that will adequately convey her anxiety for Andrew. …Her longing for Andrew. But all that comes out is—

“I wanted to see if he’s okay.” The corner of Carina’s mouth twitches, and a cross between a chortle and a cry gurgles up from her throat.

“Of course he isn’t _okay_ ,” she scoffs. “His vision is shot, his career is in the toilet, and his freedom is in flux. Not mention the state of his mind. He is not _okay_. None of this is _okay_. You being here is not _okay_.”

“I didn’t mean any harm—"  
“Then why is it that harm is all you seem to bring?” Carina snaps. Her fingers clutch at the doorframe, and she bows her head, taking a short, stabilizing breath. “I texted you so you wouldn’t do this. I thought if you knew he was well enough to be discharged, you wouldn’t come around to ‘see if he was okay.’ The text was information, not an invitation.”

“Carina, please—” The way Carina’s dark eyes hardened, however, makes it clear she is done, as does the vicious way she snatches the tart out of Meredith’s hands.

“You delivered your tart,” she hisses. “Now get off my porch.”

The door slams shut, and Meredith does not linger. She is running on fumes, sleep having been a pipe dream of late, so she just doesn’t have to the energy to abuse the doorbell until Carina opens back up and hears her out.

Besides, she still doesn’t have an inkling of what she’d say if Carina were to give up some ground and allow her the floor. What words will build a solid shield and provide an adequate defense? How to convey what, in the moment, made perfect sense but in retrospect is incomprehensible? Why don’t they translate, her intentions?

Descending the Delucas’ walkway, Meredith considers it all a recipe she has not yet master but will. She will prove her love is made of more than chocolate, raspberries, and empty gestures.

Recently, Owen has been grasping for silver linings, but they tear quickly under weight of the obese cumulonimbi polluting his atmosphere. He can’t help but see the dark in the light—patients who die alone and unmourn, relatives who hide secrets behind their back in mimicry of mercy, doctors who put ego before healing, administrators who value cents over sensibility. The world is monochrome, ugly and coarse, and he really does not see the point of it anymore.

_What are we all doing here?_ he thinks numbly as his surveys the hustle and bustle of his colleagues. Day in and day out, they scramble around like ants to patch up skin, muscle, bone, nerve, organ, and to what end? So that their patients live to deceive and be deceived another year or twenty?

In war, in the sands of a distant desert, Owen had something to believe in—a goal to march toward. Here, though, home, under the bright lights of the OR, Owen can’t tell you what on earth he is fighting for. He is becoming increasingly convinced that healing is just a prolonged exercise in futility.

It is in this state of mind that Owen catches sight of an unfamiliar alpha crowding Schmitt’s personal space. He is passing through Labor and Delivery to check up on a heavily pregnant car crash victim he had initially treated in the PIT when Schmitt’s scent—or, more accurately, Kim’s scent—brushes against his nostrils. This strikes him as odd, because all the interns are supposed to be on Dr. Pham’s service today, and Dr. Pham, who had cheerfully informed Owen of her schedule for the entire week in the span of their four minute introduction, does not have a patient in this department. So, Owen, thinking that the intern has yet again stumbled his way into a Three Stooges worthy mess, follows the scent to a private patient room, and through the crack in the door spies Schmitt from behind. Sitting on the bed, he is hunched over, leaning precariously forward, and beside him is the unmistakable, strong silhouette of an alpha, whose arm swings around to embrace Schmitt’s shoulders.

Owen’s monochromatic world is suddenly drenched in red.

“GET OFF OF HIM!” Owen roars over the metallic screech of hinges as he kicks the door wide open. In a blink, he is across the room and seizes the alpha by the forearm, hauling him off the bed and tossing him at the wall, against which his body slams with a thunderous thud.

“Schmitt!” screams Owen, whirling back toward the bed. “What the hell! You’re mated, but you’re in here—” The accusation dies like a moth flying into a flame as Schmitt struggles to sit up. Blanched and sweaty, he is a pitiful sight, a bucket of bile squeezed between his trembling knees.

“Please…,” he rasps. “Please, Dr. Hunt. Don’t tell Nico…not before his surgery…”

“We have to, Levi.” The unknown alpha pushes himself off the wall and begins brush to his pink scrubs clean, though there is no visible dirt. His dark diamond eyes bore holes into Owen’s skull, but his tone stays even. Calm. “This is no longer a case of morning sickness.”

“Schmitt,” Owen murmurs hollowly, “what is going on?”

“Dr. Hunt, was it?” the alpha answers instead, stepping forward. “Head of Trauma? I’m Dr. Evans, and Levi is my patient. So I’m going to ask you to leave now.”

Owen blinks.

“Excuse me?”

“No, sir,” Evans rebukes, “I believe that is my line. I didn’t request a trauma consult, and as far as I know, you have no relationship with my patient beyond a professional one. So, _excuse me_ , but what makes you think you can waltz into a patient’s room and demand answers about a case you have nothing to do with?”

As much as Owen wants to revel in outrage, he knows Evans is right. This is none of his business, even if Schmitt had been breaking the seventh commandment, which he clearly isn’t. Dumbfounded, he swallows thickly, pushing down the strange, choking throb of remorse to clear the way for words of contrition. But Evans’ gaze suddenly darts away from Owen, and then he is diving past, his arms thrust ahead in a desperate reach. Owen spins around, just in time to see Schmitt fall. His entire body has gone lax, the bucket plummeting to the floor, its contents splashing against the tile as a putrid, yellow-green wave. Unhesitant, Evans charges right into it and catches Schmitt by the arm pits.

“Levi!” Evans cries. The gasp is bursting with the urgency of care, and something about it jolts Owen awake. He jumps into action and helps Evans lift Schmitt back onto the bed.

“Code Blue?” he asks as he moves to remove Schmitt’s sneakers.

“No,” Evans immediately dismisses, his fingers pressed to Schmitt’s jugular. The animosity is gone from his voice, replaced with placid professionalism. They both know without saying that Owen is now no longer an interloper. He is a fellow doctor, here to heal. “He has hyperemesis gravidarum. It’s gone untreated for days, so he is severely dehydrated. He needs fluids.”

“Why wouldn’t he get it treated sooner?” Owen asks, not with judgment but rather purely clinically. 

“Because his alpha has been preparing for an important surgery,” Evans answers. He reaches for the red call button and begins to lay into it like a man on a mission. “Levi didn’t want to distract him.” A nurse jogs in, and Evans begins firing off instructions, requesting electrolyte levels, anti-nausea medication, and an IV drip. Meanwhile, there is a feather light tug at Owen’s sleeve, and he looks down. Schmitt’s foggy hazel eyes peer back up.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please…wait until after Nico’s surgery…please…”

_Loyalty_. This all comes down to loyalty—loyalty at one’s own expense at that. Gently, Owen takes Schmitt’s hand and squeezes, a silent promise to do what he can.

This silver lining—this rediscovery that faithfulness is not a figment—will not break. Owen won’t let it.


	6. Month Two, Part 3: Zygote

Amelia is unashamed to admit that _competitive_ is her natural state. The youngest of five siblings, she is used to fighting for what she wants, and she is an expert at deploying whatever means necessary to get the job done. Her brother and three sisters had all been stronger, bigger, and not smarter but certainly more experienced, so Amelia had to get…creative. Okay, she fought dirty, but given her disadvantages, it had been essential for survival. For recognition. And as she grew, her adult education had only served to fine tune her skills. Medical school had been a killing field, surgical residency a brutal culling. Only the strong, cunning, and ambitious made it out metaphorically alive.

Granted, she hasn’t had to use ruthless maneuvering since reaching the zenith of her career. She has long since arrived and no longer has to prove her metal, and these days she experiences the thrill of blood sport through the residents and interns with the same unabashed battle-lust of a gladiator games spectator.

So maybe she is a little overeager to taste the fray again, but it is also true that Link is too laisse faire with his trust. He is all too happy to believe that his fellow didn’t swipe a groundbreaking surgery out from under his nose and lay the turn of events at the feet of patient rapport and happenstance. Amelia, however, knows better. Kim is a brilliant surgeon on the precipice of bloom, so it necessarily follows that he is just as much a snake in the grass as the best of them. Thus, while Link might be fine with Kim stealing what his is, Amelia is not about to let the theft stand unanswered.

She approaches Kim as he is nearing the OR. His scrub cap is already fixed to his scalp, and he is securing the ties of his surgical mask behind his head while keeping his eyes on the OR door. Hands in her pockets, she falls into step with him easily.

“Time for Sung-ho Park’s surgery already?” she asks amiably. Finishing off a knot, he nods.

“Yes,” he answers smoothly. She nods in turn and whistles.

“I have to say, Kim, I do admire your ability to compartmentalize.” He looks away from the OR to her, and his thick black eyebrows arch quizzically. She shrugs. “I mean, if Link had just been admitted, I would be too out of my mind to think of picking up scalpel, let alone embark on a day-long experimental surgery.”

She keeps walking, even though she is fully aware that Kim has stopped dead in his tracks, and she makes a show of strolling another foot or two before turning back toward him. His deep brown eyes are blown wide.

“…What?” he asks. “What do you mean by that?” She dons a puzzled expression.

“Wasn’t Schmitt admitted a little earlier to L and D?” she queries with faux innocence. Kim’s eyebrows quirk at the acronym, and Amelia lets the tension pulse a beat before she clarifies. “Labor and Delivery?”

It’s pulpable—the moment when the nail hits into the coffin. Kim’s every muscle cell stiffens. His breath stutters and then raves. His hand quakes as it begins to rise toward his mask. The autonomic nervous system is kicking in, the base alpha brain registering a threat to its omega and demanding immediate action. His vision is tunneling at an exponential pace: he is forgetting anything and everything that isn’t his mate. Just a few more seconds, and he’ll be mentally and physically gone.

“Schmitt and the baby are fine, Nico.” 

Owen’s voice is a calm rumble, but it is loud and deep enough to summon Kim’s focus. Whirling around, Amelia finds him and Link flanking Pham who, so very small and delicate between the two muscled giants, seems completely disinterested in the scene unfolding before her, one hand holding a lollipop to her mouth while the other deftly navigates a Smartphone screen. Owen and Link, in contrast, are giving their whole, undivided attention.

“It’s hyperemesis gravidarum,” Owen continues with careful tread. “Schmitt is dehydrated, but he is getting fluids now. He is okay, and he wants you to do this surgery.”

Kim is unconvinced, his breathing failing to slow.

“This is why Schmitt didn’t want to tell you right away,” Link adds, his broad face smooth stone. “He didn’t want you to freak out and get distracted.” Kim’s upper lip quivers in a growl.

“You knew?” he hisses. “You should have told me.”

“Schmitt asked everyone not to,” Link explains. His blue eyes dart toward Amelia, and they slice her like a swiftly drawn knife. “He wants—”

“—to speak you,” Pham announces suddenly around her lollipop. Walking past Amelia, she holds out her phone to Kim, whose eyes drop and then swell. 

“Nico.” Schmitt’s voice is an exhausted mewl, but the phone’s volume is loud enough for Amelia to hear him. Kim snatches the phone and holds it close with both hands as if he could reach right through the screen.

“Levi!” he cries. “Are you okay? Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well?”

“I’m sorry,” Schmitt murmurs. “I just didn’t want to distract you… You were preparing so hard… I thought I’d get over it, but I guess I was wrong… But I’m okay, I promise. So, please, go be awesome. I’m just sorry I won’t get to see it. They won’t let me leave until my electrolytes balance out. I tried sneaking out, but Dr. Evans caught me. He says he’ll handcuff me to the bed if I try it again.”

Kim inhales once, twice, and then his eyes curve into smiling half-moons.

“You rest and stay put,” he instructs. “I’ll go be awesome, and when I’m done, I’ll come to you.”

“Okay,” Schmitt yawns, his words drooping with sleep. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

A cascade of electronic beats signals the end of the call, and Kim hands the phone back to Pham.

“Thank you, Dr….?”

“Pham,” she supplies as she removes the lollipop from her mouth. “Dyugen Pham, and you’re welcome, though I admit my motives are purely selfish. Getting to see and participate in cool and rare surgeries is the number one reason I gave up sensible weather. So good luck, Dr. Kim. I’m looking forward to see what you got.”

Pham then turns to go and lifts the lollipop up back up to her lips. Before she wraps her tongue around the purple candy, she glances at Amelia and nods curtly.

“Dr. Shepherd.” Her front teeth clamp shut on the candy stick, and she, along with Owen, goes, while Link steps toward Kim.

“Go scrub in. I’ll be there in a minute,” he tells his fellow, patting him on him on the back. “But you got this, man.” Kim nods, exhales sharply, and then proceeds onto the OR. Once he is gone, Amelia huffs and glares at Pham’s shrinking back.

“I know all she _said_ was my name,” she, bemused, says, “but I’m fairly certain she was _calling_ me names.”

“She was being polite,” Link replies. There is no warmth in his voice, and when Amelia looks at him, his eyes hold only condescension. “I, on the other hand, have no problem saying it flat out—what the hell, Amelia?”

“What?” she snaps indignantly. 

“You think I don’t get you told Nico about Schmitt to throw him off his game?” Link grounds out. “You thought he’d run off to go check on Schmitt, leaving me to perform the surgery. Well, am I wrong?” Scrunching her nose, Amelia decides not to fight the accusation. It’s true, and she’s been caught in the act, so what’s the use of denying it?

“It’s your surgery,” she proclaims. “You shouldn’t just let Kim—or anyone for that matter-- take it.”

“Take it?” Link repeats incredulously. “Amelia, I’m the head of Ortho. If I want a surgery, all I have to do is say so. As it is, Nico has done all the work. He did all the consultations, the research, the practice runs. It’s his surgery! I don’t even really need to be in the OR, but Nico asked me to supervise. I’m mostly a security blanket at this point!”

His fists go to his hips, and he tries inhale through gritted teeth.

“Did you even consider that I wouldn’t be prepared to take over this surgery?” he goes on. “That Nico was the best surgeon for the job? That by sabotaging him you were delaying an all-important surgery for the patient, who is watching his career and passion slip away every day that he is confined to a bed? Not to mention what you did is tantamount to emotional warfare! Maybe Schmitt should have told Nico sooner, but that’s their personal relationship, and we don’t have a say in that. God, did you think at all, Amelia?”

The confidence is sucker punched right out of Amelia.

“I-I,” she mumbles, licking her lips. “I was trying to help you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help!” Link sneers. “And what you did wasn’t helpful. It was cruel. And what’s worse is that you think it’s okay to act like that. That as long you get what you want, it doesn’t matter who gets in hurt in the process. Is that a life lesson you want to pass down to our son? Because if it is, I’m not okay with that. That’s not the kind of person I want to raise our son to be.”

Finished, he speeds off, marching through the OR door and out of her reach, but it isn’t his steaming anger that shoves Amelia into a daze. She has seen Link angry before and has been the root of his distress more than once; but despite being furious with her, he still respected her. Still admired and adored her. But just now? Just now, his eyes, beholding her, had held nothing but cool, disgusted contempt, and that was not the kind of recognition she was aiming for.

When Nico steps off the elevator, the lights of Labor and Delivery are soft and low, the floor silent as a church after dark. It is quiet hours, so both visitors and staff are few as he weaves his way through the warm-toned corridors, and the still atmosphere does nothing to alleviate the exhaustion settling into his bone marrow. Sung-ho’s surgery had gone exceedingly well, but it also had been a gruelingly painstaking nine hours and forty minutes. His feet are screaming in agony, his clothes and hair limp with sweat and body odor. Yet, without a second thought he bypassed the locker room and showers and made a beeline for the nearest elevator bay. 

Before he can do anything, he needs to lay eyes on Levi. The feelings and thoughts he had locked away in a safe deep within himself for the better part of the day are out and are riding his bloodstream like a roller coaster. He needs to see, feel his mate before they go off the rails.

Approaching Levi’s room, Nico’s pace starts to gain steam only to peter back out as an exceptionally handsome, ebony-skinned alpha in pink scrubs steps out of the room. He is scribbling away on a chart and glances up when Nico’s shadow falls across the paperwork.

“You must be Dr. Kim,” the alpha says. 

“Uh, yeah,” Nico confirms tiredly.

“Nice to meet you,” he greets, smiling. “I’m Dr. Evans. I’ve been looking after Levi today.”

“How is he?” Nico asks, his vocal cords straining to heft the words up onto his tongue. Smile broadening, Evans steps to the side, clearing the view into Levi’s room, and Nico can see him tucked into bed and curled onto his side, fast asleep. A thousand ton weight drops from Nico’s chest, sending it high and full with light, relieved air.

“He is okay,” Evans assures. “We got fluids into him, and it is looks like the anti-nausea medication is doing its job. Out of an abundance of caution, we are keeping him overnight for observation just make sure his electrolyte levels have stabilized, but he should be able to go home in the morning.”

“Thank you,” Nico sighs. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” Evans says. He pauses briefly and then clears his throat. “Levi mentioned that he hasn’t found an OB yet. I strongly recommend that he does as soon possible. Hyperemesis gravidarum is definitely manageable, but there is a chance it could last through the entire pregnancy. It needs to be monitored, or else it could lead to whole host of more serious complications for Levi and the baby. I completely understand if you don’t want his OB to be someone here, but he does need someone.”

Nico nods rapidly. Of course Evans is right. It was foolish of him and Levi to put off proper prenatal care, and Nico will ensure that is remedied.

Evans’ empathetic smile returns.

“If you don’t mind me saying,” he murmurs, “don’t be too hard on Levi. He wasn’t thinking like a doctor. He was thinking like a guy so head-over-heels in love that he’d do anything to see the man he loves succeed.”

Evans leaves then, but his words follow Nico into Levi’s room. Soundlessly, he pulls up a chair and sits down as close as he can next to the bed. Afterwards, his hand slips under the bedsheets and fishes until it scoops up one of Levi’s hands. Comforted by hot palm in his, Nico bows his head until his forehead grazes the mattress.

“…Burden me,” he whispers hoarsely. “Tell me if you’re hurting, even if it’s minor to you. It’s never going to be minor to me. So burden me. Don’t try to make it easier on me by taking away the choice. Because the choice will always be you. You are be the most important thing to me. You and our family. I don’t ever want to walk out of surgery to find out that something happened…that I was the last to know…”

Lifting his head, he half-stands and plants a kiss on Levi’s temple.

“So burden me,” he utters again. “Please.”

Drowsily, he sits back down, all energy completely spent. Still, when he discovers hazel-blue eyes gazing back at him, he manages to grin.


	7. Month Three, Part 1: Physics

Casey, frankly, prefers a degree of…distance between his personal and professional lives, and so far, he has been successfully in preserving that distance, no small feat given the enmeshed nature of his workplace. Don’t get him wrong—he gets the practically of it. When you eat, breathe, sleep, and excrete surgery, your pool of potential friends and lovers is painfully small and eventually, as hearts are broken and discarded, polluted.

It is little wonder how so many of his coworkers, contemporaries and superiors alike, found themselves bogged down in the mire in which the private and public merged and blurred. He is lucky to have been secure in a pairing prior to the start of his residency, or he would be stuck in the same paradox of proximity, emotional fuel and waste gathered and dumped respectively in the same place. 

Sure, not all workplace relationships crash and burn but rather rock and roll, shaken but unbroken. Yet, it is the publicness of it all that Casey can’t quite digest. Look at Dr. Altman and Dr. Hunt. Their engagement, rupture, and floundering reconciliation have been a trending topic of gossip for months, and even the mid-years dissect their love with whispering hands. Worse, Casey can’t fault them for it, not when the argument between the two is the reason the interns’ skill lab session has been delayed. In lieu of real instruction, they merely have taken what they have been given to work with.

Thank God Jayla works in fashion.

Thinking, though, of Jayla, Casey shudders. They had their fight last night, Jayla’s brown eyes a bronze wildfire as they beheld the crumpled invitation Casey had shoved into a coat pocket.

“Are you _that_ ashamed of me?” she had hissed. “What? Think I can’t keep up with all your doctor friends?” 

It had not been a new discovery--Jayla’s fear that she would seem frothy and superficial when stacked against his colleagues, who deal with matters of life and death on the daily. That, during the consuming hours he spends in the hospital, he will find someone else who better grasps the weight of a scalpel. But it had been the closest that she had come to saying it out right, and Casey had tried to explain of course that isn’t it. Casey considers her one of the most intelligent people he knows, and he adores her creative mind, the way she can shape beauty with little more than vision and fabric. While he can get hung up on procedure and detail, she jumps right into the big picture, happily filling in the lines as she goes along according to her own design.

Casey would be frighteningly dull without her— _is_ frighteningly dull without her, especially at parties. She is and always will be his plus one. So it is never a question of _who_ he will go with but a question of whether _they_ will go at all.

Jayla had swiftly dismissed this is as bullshit and had kept jabbing a finger at the invitation. 

“Why wouldn’t we want to go to an engagement party for your friends?” she had demanded. “They are your friends, aren’t they?”

Casey hadn’t had a response and summarily had been dismissed to the couch for the night, the invitation taunting him from the coffee table until he had slunk off at dawn for work.

Levi is his friend, Casey now thinks, his friend from _work_ however, the same work that chewed up and spat out relationships like an insatiable beast. Is Casey wrong for wanting to safeguard his pairing with Jayla from it? As much as he loves her, he is not as fortunate as Levi, who is safe in the assurance of permanence. 

But Jayla is putting her foot down this time, and the collision that Casey has been trying so hard to avoid is now imminent, all thanks to a five by seven slip of paper—the same slip of paper that Taryn slaps down on the table that Casey and Levi are sharing.

“So,” she says without preamble, “if this get-together is a housewarming _and_ an engagement party, am I obligated to buy you and Kim _two_ presents?”

Levi, who has been staring dreamily off into space, blinks rapidly.

“What?” Rolling her eyes, Taryn taps the off-white invitation with a trimmed nail.

“The party you and Kim are throwing so everyone can marvel at you and your undoubtedly God-awful expensive new house?”

Levi’s eyes drop to the invitation and gapes like a carp dumped onto a wharf.

“What party?” he cries. Recovering, he scrambles to pick up the invitation and, after scanning it three times, lowers his head to the tabletop with a low groan. “Nico is going to be so pissed.”

Taryn and Casey share a concerned glance.

“Uh, why?” Taryn drawls.

“Because,” Levi mumbles as he tilts his head up and rests its weight on his chin. “We didn’t send this. Our moms did.”

“Your moms?” Casey echoes. Nodding, Levi sits back up albeit shoulders slumped.

“Well, Nico’s mom probably did the heavy lifting,” he amends, “but my mom was definitely in on it. Nico and I just closed on the house four days ago! We weren’t even sure we wanted to have a housewarming, not when the wedding is next month. It just seemed like a lot to ask of people with so short notice. Nico and his mom argued about it about for an hour until he flat out told her _we_ would handle it _if_ we decided to have one.”

“Well, it looks like your moms decided and handled it for you,” Taryn says needlessly. “These went to everyone you would’ve sent one to. And then some.”

“I got one too,” Casey adds as confirmation. Resignedly, Levi hands the invitation back to Taryn.

“Then there’s no getting out of this,” he sighs. “We are having a housewarming slash engagement party next week…. which means we have to paint and move and unpack and decorate by next week.” His shoulders slump lower under the crush of the mere thought of such a monumental task, and for the first time since last night, Casey is not envious. “I will tell Nico after my ultrasound this afternoon. Hopefully, he’ll be in good mood and won’t get too upset.”

“I hate to break it to you,” Taryn replies as she crosses her arms. “But he probably already knows. Why do you think Hunt and Altman are fighting? It’s because of that invitation.”

“Why would they be fighting about that?” Levi sputters.

“Not _about_ it,” she corrects. “ _Because_ of it. They were supposed to have married months ago, remember? I am sure getting this invitation brought up a discussion about why they’re not.”

Levi’s head wilts to the table again.

“That’s exactly why Nico and I didn’t want to have party!” he whines. “We didn’t want to create stress for anybody!”

‘Stress’ is the wrong word, Casey mentally notes. ‘Friction’ is the better descriptor. Friction, because per its definition, it is the resistance caused when a surface clashes against another. This little invitation of cardstock has absorbed what little lubricant there is between their personal and professional selves, and friction is the natural result.

“Did you get one?”

Dahlia’s voice is sharp, poking Roy awake and out of a light snooze. He blinks blurrily at her.

“Get what?” he yawns.

“An invitation.” She stares pointedly ahead at Schmitt, Parker, and Helm, who, at a table at the front of the room, are passing back and forth a cream white card. Roy lazily tracks her gaze.

“An invitation to what?” he asks stupidly. “Kim and Schmitt’s wedding? No. Why would I? Schmitt doesn’t like me.”

“To their engagement party,” Dahlia clarifies. “But I’m sure I’m safe in assuming the answer remains the same.”

“Yeah,” Roy says, already drifting back toward sleep. “It does. And it’s fine. It’s not like I expected to be invited, and you shouldn’t either. I told you—they’re pack. We’re not. Excluding us is only instinct.”

There he goes again, Dahlia thinks disgustedly, settling so well into the role of outcast. It is not a skin she can get used to wearing, and even if she could, she would never allow herself to. She is used to leading the pack, and to the lead the pack, you first have to be considered part of it. True, all the packs she has ever belonged to were the metaphorical kind, but the logic doesn’t change when the pack is of the literal nature. She has to get in first to lead.

And it’s not like the pack’s membrane is impermeable. She had seen strangers pass through it to the other side. Strangers like the pixyish Dr. Pham and straightlaced Dr. Evans, who have gained entry with genuine, altruistic concern for Schmitt’s well-being. But try as she might, Dahlia can’t make a dent in the pack’s mistrust of her, any gesture eyed with a magnifying glass. Once, just last week during a lengthy surgery of Dr. Avery’s, Dahlia had tried to pass a fig bar to Schmitt as they sat in the observation gallery, but Helm had intercepted it and had turned it over several times to inspect the packaging as if she really thought Dahlia had tampered with it somehow. Or maybe she had just sensed that Dahlia’s intentions weren’t exactly pure.

So, on the outside she has remained, stuck beside Roy, who does not even bother to try, and the lack of invitation only serves to emphasize that fact.

“We have to get an invite,” she tells him. He snorts sleepily.

“Why? So we can stand on the edge of the dance floor sipping on punch like losers?”

“This is not an eighties movie, Roy,” Dahlia scoffs. “Getting an invite means Schmitt acknowledges us, and if Schmitt acknowledges us, then the pack or whatever will too.”

“There is just one hole in that plan,” he says, yawning again. “The invites have already been sent out, and we were clearly were left of the guest list. What do you think is going to make Schmitt change his mind in a week?”

“…We don’t have to convince _him_ ,” Dahlia murmurs. “I’m sure that invitees are allowed to bring a plus one.”

Roy smirks before burying his head back into his folded arms to snag another fistful of sleep, but Dahlia, watching that front table a room away, knows this plan is solid. 

If she cannot pierce that membrane, she will hitch herself to someone who can.

“Why have the interns been left to fool around like a bunch of middle schoolers?” Bailey demands from the doorway of the attendings’ lounge. “Where the hell is Hunt? He is supposed to be instructing them on triage techniques.”

Looking up from the invitation in his hand, Link acknowledges her question with a quick shrug of the shoulders, while Nico, huddled in a far corner and wrathfully hissing into his phone, seems to have not heard the question.

“I saw them in the east stairwell,” Dyugen hums, thumbing through a medical journal article. “I think they were arguing.”

“Arguing?” Bailey snaps. “About what?”

“I don’t know,” Dyugen answers with chirper frankness. “It looked very personal, so it was very much not my business.”

“Fair enough,” Bailey concedes. “It doesn’t matter. Point is, they are not where they are supposed to be.” And with that, she marches off, undoubtedly, Link is sure, to the east stairwell to give Owen and Teddy a verbal lashing.

“Since it’s a dual-purpose party,” Dyugen says after Bailey is gone, “can I bring a dual purpose gift, or will Nico be offended if I don’t bring two? My brother certainly would be. Lord help me if I ever show up to a dual-purpose party of his with only one gift. I would never hear the end of it. When I say ‘never,’ I mean were he to die first, he would come back from the dead solely to gripe at me about it.”

“I think he will be…,” Link hedges as he glances at Nico again. His fellow is still gripping his cell phone so tightly that his fingers have blanched a bloodless white. “…grateful for any present you bring.”

“Alright,” she sighs, “but if I sense any vibes of resentment, I’m coming for you Lincoln.” 

“Are you and Caleb going to go together?” Link can’t help but ask. Dyugen frowns quizzically.

“Why would we go together?”

“Aren’t you two… a thing? I mean, you spend a lot time together.”

“You and Nico spend more time together than you do with Dr. Shepherd,” Dyugen points out, “but I am not under the impression that you two are ‘a thing.’”

Link holds up his hands in surrender.

“Okay,” he chuckles. “Sorry. You’re right.” 

“It’s not a big deal,” Dyugen says nonchalantly. “Given the culture here, I see how you jumped to that conclusion, but no, we are not ‘a thing.’ We’re friends. If Caleb brings anyone, it’s going to be one of those firefighters from the local station—last name starts with an ‘M,’ I think. Of course, he will have to actually articulate words with his mouth instead of making puppy dog eyes at the guy’s back. You would think a man that good looking would have better game.”

“Are you bringing anyone?”

“Yes—my fabulous self. She is the best date. She doesn’t judge me for stuffing my face with hors d'oeuvres, and she has no problem leaving when I’m tired of talking to people.” She grins and then licks the pad of her index finger so it can better grip the next page of the journal. “Stag, in my opinion, is the best way to go to the most parties, unless, of you have a partner or pair. Then, obviously, you go with them. Either way, it’s the easiest route.”

…Was it though? Link peers down at the invitation, and his eyes trace the neat, scrolling typeface: To Drs. Atticus Lincoln and Amelia Shepherd. A set. A pair. Magnets sealed together by the force of attraction. That’s how it ought to be, but lately it feels as if their polarities have been reversed, pushing them ever part, her solidly convinced she has done nothing warranting contrition and him repelled by her blind righteousness. Is it right, then, to bring her to a celebration of the very relationship she had tried to weaponize?

…Is it right to be with Amelia when the push-and-pull of their pairing is starting to become lopsided heavily in favor of _push_?

These ponderings are interrupted when Nico stalks back over, his phone screen dark in the clutch of his fingers.

“My mother,” he grumbles, “is an unmovable force.”

“Aren’t all mothers unmovable forces?” Dyugen clucks. “Pretty sure it’s a natural transformation that happens when you push another human being out of you. You realize if you have enough strength to do that, well, damn, you can do anything.”

Nico sighs, and his face softens a little at the edges.

“I got to go,” he announces. “Levi’s ultrasound is in a few minutes.” Grinning, Link waves him on.

“Go,” he urges. “We’ll catch up later to talk about Lisa Williams’ hip replacement.”

“They really are something,” Dyugen says watching Nico leave. “Him and Dr. Schmitt. I don’t need anyone to complete me, but looking at them, I sometimes wonder if there’s anyone out there that can make me a better whole.”

A better whole, huh? Yeah, Link contemplates as he sets the invitation down, maybe that is the question he should ask himself—does the other half of his pairing make him a better whole?

And the truth is he’s not entirely sure she does.

As a doctor, Levi finds it a strange, uncomfortable reversal when he is the one on the examination table. It’s like waking up in Wonderland where the implausible becomes the natural order of things. That is how he had felt after fainting in a surgeon’s uniform to an OR floor and jolting wake in a patient’s gown on a gurney—like he had tumbled down the rabbit hole. 

Yet, lying here, his shirt rolled halfway up his torso so Dr. Evans can squeeze cool gel onto his bare skin, Levi doesn’t mind the odd, dreamy wave that washes over him.

“Ready?” Dr. Evans asks, smiling. 

Nico’s fingers thread in between Levi’s, and his warm brown gaze silently asks Levi the same question.

“Yeah,” Levi replies quietly. “Ready.”

Dr. Evans gingerly presses the wand to Levi’s abdomen and begins to rotate it in firm circles, spreading the chilly gel across Levi’s stomach. A monitor screen lights up, white and gray craving away at black until the curled silhouette of a vaguely human form appears.

“There we are,” Dr. Caleb says. “A perfectly healthy looking baby. Let’s see if it’s a healthy sounding baby.”

He flips a switch, and a steady drumbeat suddenly fills the room, a fast-paced rhythm tinny with static. Levi’s inhale shakes, and Nico draws impossibly closer, placing a hand atop of Levi’s head as the other lightly squeezes Levi’s palm.

“Yep,” Dr. Evans confirms, “nice strong heartbeat. Everything looks good.”

Everything looks beautiful. Fantastically beautiful and wonderfully real. All the absurdities—the invitations Levi didn’t send, the impossible timeline for moving, the countless invasive eyes, Dr. Grey’s ever present absence—fall away, leaving only that robust beat, the soundtrack of Levi’s new reality.

If he really has tumbled down the rabbit hole and is lost in the jungles of Wonderland, he never wants to be found.


	8. Month Three, Part 2: Foreshadow

Below Tom, the world moves at its usual harried pace, doctors, nurses, CNA’s, therapists, technicians and the general public weaving through and around each other like ants dancing to the grand symphony of habit and instinct, their individual, discordant melodies harmonizing to a dull drone. It’s a dance that never stops, regardless of whatever tragedies and joys occur. People sicken, and people heal. People die, and people are born. Melodies fade out, and melodies begin. Still, the dance goes on, and Tom knows he is just one chord, no more or less significant than any other. Despite his healthy opinion of himself, he accepts that the dance will go on when his music stops.

Yet, he prefers the view this advantage point provides him—the illusion that he is separate from it all…above it all—and he doesn’t care for how Beckham’s arrival ruins it. In an exquisitely tailored suit and snakeskin heels, she saunters toward him, her fingers, lacquered apple red, trailing along the bannister.

“Surveying your kingdom, are we?” she sneers.

“Your timing, Natalie,” Tom sighs, “leaves something to be desired. I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”

“My timing,” she replies as she slows to a stop beside him, “is impeccable. And do you I think enjoy lecturing you about propriety? Because I don’t. Every time I do, I flashback to St. Maria’s Academy, except I’m Sister Virginia, and you’re me.”

“There is so much in that sentence I would like to break down,” Tom quips.

“Given that you’re an accomplished surgeon,” Beckham continues, pointedly ignoring his cocked eyebrows, “I would’ve thought you would know when to call it.”

Looking away, Tom balances his elbows on the bannister and hunches his shoulders up to his ears.

“Catherine send you?”

“Catherine is in Napa doing what most rich people do when their hearts are pulverized,” she replies. “Getting tipsy on very expensive wine in the company of very good-looking people. You should try it. I can’t imagine it is any less effective than almost coming to blows with Dr. Hunt. Again.”

Tom snaps up, his hands gripping the bannister tightly.

“Did Hunt file a complaint?” he barks. “Because _he_ came at _me_.” Beckham snorts and folds her arms.

“One, the ‘he-started-it’ defense works only for ten-year-old’s. Two, Dr. Hunt didn’t tell me a damn thing. Dr. Bailey is the one who expressed concern. She was an unwitting witness to your after-school special drama in the east stairwell.”

Oh, that’s right, Tom recalls glumly as he collapses his elbows back onto the bannister. Bailey had, about a week ago, stumbled upon that less than stellar scene: Hunt, two steps above him, grasping him by the collar of his shirt, Teddy standing on the step in the middle and trying to separate them with pleading hands. Worse, Tom knows how ridiculous he must have looked—the other man, a beta, challenging a scorned alpha for the affections of a female who doesn’t want him. Moreover, Tom can’t fault Hunt for the fury that had set his glare ablaze, because Tom has been on that side of equation, the duped cuckhold. He knows that righteous rage and how it both scorches and enlivens you, molding you into a candle burning at both ends. Tom had taken cold comfort in the fact that Teddy and Hunt weren’t wedded yet and that he, technically, hadn’t broken up the sacred covenant of marriage.

But does that technicality really grant him any kind of reprieve? Bailey, peering down from a floor up, clearly hadn’t thought so, not if the stony scowl on her face had been anything to go by.

“Bailey tattled?” Tom chuckles. “To you? She hates you.”

“What Dr. Bailey hates,” Beckham amends, “is that when she sees me coming, it means someone has made a mess that I am going to tell her how to clean up. She came to me only to stop a mess from being made, because she has better things to do than clean up after grown people. And you are a grown man, Tom. A smart one too. I know you know that whatever is going on between you and Dr. Altman won’t end well, because she has already picked him, not you.”

Tom’s crushed heart fires off a debilitating throb.

“You ever been in love, Natalie,” he asks suddenly, his voice flat, “or are you as much a cold-hearted snake as they say you are.”

Beckham merely grins and drums her red nails against the metal railing.

“I have been called worse than a Paula Abdula song,” she replies. “You’re hoping I’ll say ‘no,’ right? You want to tell me I can’t possibly understand how you feel and to fuck off. Sorry to disappoint you, but, yes, I’ve been in love, a couple times actually. Once, I even paired.”

Beckham’s glacier blue eyes soften, just a degree, under the warmth of memory, and Tom winces at the sting of remorse.

“What happened?” he inquires quietly, and Beckham shrugs.

“Nothing dramatic. We wanted different things, and you can’t build something with someone if you don’t agree on the basic design. Point is, I do know what is like to love someone despite seeing the end coming as clear as day. So, I know what I’m talking about when I say it won’t end well.”

“...I don’t know how to stop,” he confesses. Beckham smiles emphatically.

“Loving her?” she finishes. “I’m not telling you to stop loving her. I may not be the doctor here, but I know the heart doesn’t work like that.”

Despite himself, he smiles.

“So what would you prescribe then?”

“For starters?” Beckham hums. “A good time. Remind yourself that your happiness isn’t dependent on someone else. I hear there’s a party tomorrow night, and maybe that’s just the medicine you need.”

Pushing himself up, Tom groans playfully.

“You mean Schmitt and Kim’s engagement party? How will that be a good time? I was sent an invite out of curtesy, not because the lovebirds actually want me to show my face.”

“Are you kidding me?” Beckham says, laughing. “It is going to be fantastic people watching. Haven’t you noticed the way everyone is suddenly reverting back to their high school selves, hoping to get a date to the hottest party of the year? It is deliciously hilarious.”

“You going?” he asks, and Beckham scoffs as she uncrosses her ankles and steps away from the bannister.

“Hell no,” she answers, flashing a grin that makes Tom guess that, in high school, she was _that_ girl. “Me going would be like the referee going to the football keger. But you’re the co-captain, so where else would you be on a Friday night?”

With a swing of her hips, she departs, but the illusion of superiority fails to fall back into place. She is right, Tom silently accepts. If there is anyone above the fray, it is her, the impartial regulator. He, on the other, is in the thick of it, no matter where he stands.

“Wait a minute,” Wilson says as she slices into a fifty-year-old’s stomach, “Evans asked if he could bring _two_ dates?” Schmitt, angling a suction tube to catch the resulting blood, nods.

“Yeah,” he confirms. “One of the firefighters from Station Nineteen and an ex-firefighter, who is also the firefighter’s ex? I don’t know—it’s confusing.”

“It’s _weird_ ,” Wilson insists. Phan spreads the organ open to get a better look at the tumor lurking inside.

“Why?’ she challenges cheerfully. “Polyamory has existed as long as humanity has, and there are plenty of cultures in which it is perfectly acceptable. In fact, triads were very common in the Western world up until about two centuries ago. After that, economically speaking, it became difficult for alphas, the primary breadwinners at the time, to support more than one partner. Triads disappeared not because they themselves were considered immoral but rather because people thought it was fiscally irresponsible to take on a larger family than you could care for.”

“I still don’t get it,” Wilson sighs unapologetically. “Relationships are complicated enough when you’re dealing with one person. What do you think, Jackson? You’re an alpha of means. Would you be in a triad?”

The question hits Jackson like a cup of water to the face. At the head of the surgical table, where he is leaning over the patient’s shredded face, he blinks rapidly, taking in the eyes staring over masks at him.

“Uh, sorry?” he grunts.

“See?” Wilson drawls. “He is so shocked he’s speechless.” Jackson’s eyes dart between the three other surgeons, seeking frantically for what he has missed, and, after a long, awkward moment, Schmitt clears his throat.

“I told him ‘sure,’” Schmitt announces. “I mean, who am I to judge? Besides, knowing my mom, she probably ordered enough food to feed a small nation. The more people on hand to eat it, the better.”

“I call first dibs on any leftovers!” Wilson asserts. “If Kim’s parents are as loaded as they sound, you know it’s going to be bougie, five-star food that us little people can’t afford.”

“You own part this hospital now,” Schmitt deadpans. “You can no longer consider yourself one of ‘us little people.’”

And just like that, the conversation rolls right along from polyamory and party dates, leaving Jackson far behind. He ought to be relieved, blazing on ahead with the rest of them. The only thing anyone has been able talk about for days on end is tomorrow night’s party: who is going with who, who can pull off stag, and who will end up looking sad on the sidelines. Even the mid-years are abuzz, fantasizing that, with the bulk of attendings and residents gone, they will get to take center stage.

The air is thick with hope and anticipation, and it just makes Jackson gag. He has lost the taste for these things, his most recent romantic escapades quite exhausting his appetite. And it doesn’t help that he has a front row seat to his mother’s marriage imploding like a firework stand set on fire.

He doesn’t want to feel this way, so utterly and completely jaded, and he doesn’t want to put off his search for something that will last. Pushing off is what the patient on the table had done—pushing off pain, promising himself to get his abdomen checked out once more “important” matters had been taken care of first. He pushed and pushed off until the pain refused to be ignored and pushed back, sending him face first through a glass table.

Jackson doesn’t want it to take a crash thorough a proverbial glass table for him to give his heart the attention that it needs, because it could be too late by then. 

He also, however, doesn’t know where to start or, rather, re-start. April. Maggie. Vic. His time with each had started out so sweetly, as if he were tasting sugar for the first time, and he had been convinced at one point that each was it for him—that he had found that person. His person. But each had drifted away, leaving only bitterness behind. He doesn’t want to go through that again either.

_So, what now?_ he ponders as he begins to realign ribbons of skin. Why can’t it to be this simple, taking broken pieces and stitching them back together with thread and a careful hand? He knows how to do that, mend broken skin, make tattered flesh whole and smooth. It’s really not that hard, so long as you get the first stich right. The stitch is everything: it sets the grace, the pace, and the finish. And, the more he thinks about it, the more he supposes that’s true of most things.

Look at his relationships. April and Maggie both started with pure, sexual desire, made all the more sensual by secrecy and shadows. But when they were finally forced to endure the sun, both relationships shriveled to dry, flakey husks of the passion fruits they once were. And Vic is hardly worth mentioning, their attraction flaming in and flaming out in quick succession.

Perhaps, he needs to think a little more carefully about his next first stich. Maybe even a practice suture is in order. He glances up at the gallery, which, as always, doesn’t lack for gawking residents, and there, front row center, is Qadri, sitting primly and attentively. Their eyes meet, and she swiftly adverts her gaze to Pham, who has started to take a scalpel to the stomach tumor, but Jackson has seen more than enough to know exactly how the suture will go:

It will start with a stich of starstruck—Qadri will be stunned and then over the moon when Jackson asks her to the party. She will count herself lucky that such an attractive, accomplished attending is paying any attention to her, and she won’t risk wondering why. She will fumble her through the date and try so very hard to impress him, and the effort will flatter him. He might even grow fond of her after a while. Yet, from that very first stitch, they both know the ending will come fast, because hero-worship is effervescent, and bonds without intention fall apart by design. As long as they accept that from the first stitch, the end can be tied off smoothly, each going their own way. 

His plan set, Jackson aims his needle and thread and begins.

A cascade of fluff and maroon briefly obscure Meredith’s vision, causing her to rear back in her kitchen chair.

“What do you think?” Amelia asks as she pats the plush set, a neat pile of bath towels, hand towels, and washcloths. “Do these lux, organic, as-much-as a car payment towels say, ‘I’m sorry I manipulated your fellow’s mating bond because I thought he stole your groundbreaking surgery? Because he did.’”

“I don’t follow,” Meredith sighs. “Are these for Link?”

“No!” Amelia refutes, a frown flashing across her face. “They’re for Schmitt and Kim—an engagement slash housewarming gift for tomorrow. I am hoping that these will get Link finally to let the Sung-ho Park debacle go.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize he was still mad at you for that,” Meredith mumbles, massaging her temples. She wants to listen fully to Amelia, she does, but her lawyer’s pitying voice won’t stop echoing in her head.

_You should prepare yourself._

“I didn’t think he was still mad at me either, “ Amelia says, “but then, the other day, he suggests that maybe I shouldn’t go with him to the party. That it wouldn’t be ‘appropriate.’ Appropriate! He actually used the word ‘appropriate,’ like I am something that needs to be censored!”

_You should prepare yourself._

“I can’t believe—Meredith? …Meredith!”

Meredith jolts her head up with lightning speed, which is a little surprising, because it feels so, so heavy.

“Meredith,” Amelia says again, sitting beside her. “What’s wrong?”

“…The lawyer,” Meredith manages. Unable to look at her sister, she fixates on the tower of towels before her. “I saw her today. She had good news. And bad news.”

_You should prepare yourself._

“Okay,” exhales Amelia. “What was the news?”

“The good news…the good news is that the district attorney has declined to prosecute me for criminal charges.”

“That is good!” Amelia exclaims too cheerily. “That’s excellent—”

“The bad news,” Meredith interjects quietly. “The bad news…”

_You should prepare yourself._ Meredith has uttered these words herself on far more occasions than she cares to count. It’s what doctors say when they have exhausted all feasible interventions. When they must accept their mortal limits and instruct their patients to do the same. 

“The bad news,” Meredith says, “is that the DA has declined to prosecute because the Bonding Bureau is coming for my license. They are going to use everything at their disposal to make sure I never practice medicine again.”

_You should prepare yourself_.

For the inevitable.

For the end.

It’s pushing midnight when the door of Nico’s new house swings open. Smiling, he saves the latest draft of his article on treating bone cancer and shuts his laptop before putting it onto a low, oak coffee table. Behind him, there is the sound of keys clanging against their brass resting place, the dull thud of a backpack hitting the hallway hardwood, and then the light padding of bare feet across the living floor.

“I told you not to wait up,” Levi yawns. Sinking onto the leather couch beside Nico, he immediately curls into a ball against his alpha’s side.

“And I told you,” Nico replies, wrapping an arm around Levi’s shoulders, “that there’s no point in me going to bed alone. I can’t sleep well unless I know you made it home safe.”

“Worrywart,” Levi mutters. “I’m a big boy.”

“I know,” Nico smirks. “I still need to know you’re okay.”

“Hmm,” is Levi’s sleepy answer. “Then, for the record, I’d be super okay with calling tomorrow off. I like our home like this—with just us in it.”

Exhaling, Nico begins to rub his omega’s upper arm.

“Believe me, if I could, I would. But you’ve met our mothers. You know we would have an easier time breaking through the Great Wall. It’s only one night. We drink, we schmooze, we accept a bunch of presents we didn’t ask for, and then it’s over. We just need to make it through one night. Then it’s just us.”

“Promise?” Levi, almost completely given over to sleep, whispers. Nico leans over and kisses the top of Levi’s head.

“Promise.”

Gazing forward, out the patio doors, beyond which the bay waters glint with city lights, Nico gives himself the same pep talk: It’s just one night. 

What possibly could go wrong?


	9. Month Three, Part 3: Ill Met by Moonlight

When Miranda checks her phone for the thirteenth time since they got into the car, Ben almost smacks it right out of her hand.

“Woman, put that away!” he groans. “Grey-Sloan will not fall apart if you are gone for a few hours.”

“Tell to that to Legal,” she huffs, the blue light of her screen illuminating her glare. “Beckham is so convinced the mid-years are going to do something stupid that she is working late today. She said that she didn’t want to get engrossed in anything only to be called back to work. I swear that woman lives to grate my nerves.”

“Then don’t let her.” Miranda snorts as she shoves her phone back into her clutch.

“Spoken like a man who has never had to face the Hydra.” That’s true—Ben has never had the pleasure of meeting Natalie Beckham, and truthfully, he’d rather it stay that way. Anyone who can rattle Miranda like a maraca is no one to trifle with. Plus, he has heard the stories about how she can stare into the raging faces of the bereaved and coolly calculate the cost of their grief. Whoever said that you can’t put a price on a person had never met Beckham or her underlings—they slap a number on life and liability daily. They have more than earned the legal department’s nickname of “the snake pit.”

Shuddering, Ben decides to change the topic.

“Are you sure we have the right address?” he asks abruptly as he leans forward over the wheel, taking a long glance out the front window at the passing houses, a steady parade of McMansions. “This neighborhood looks a little beyond an attending’s salary, and it’s definitely several galaxies beyond an intern’s.”

“Oh, trust me,” Miranda mutters. “Kim and Schmitt can afford it.” Wincing, Ben realizes a beat too late that he has touched upon another sore topic. Despite her talent for maneuvering, Beckham had been not able to prevent Grey Sloan from having to pay a hefty settlement to the mated couple after Deluca’s dangerous stunt, and to say that Miranda is still bitter about it would be the same as saying the Grand Canyon is a just hole in the ground.

Rather than risk setting off another land mine, Ben settles into silence as GPS directs him to take the next right where the road splits into two diverging paths. The course guides them up a sloping hill shrouded in towering evergreens. It is as if they have suddenly left the city limits and wondered into a forest grove, the emerald pines silvery in the moonlight, yet, after a mile, the trees thin out, giving way to a cluster of homes. All are the austere Tudor style, but otherwise each is unique, some having been remolded into a fresher blend of old and modern. Kim and Schmitt’s two-storied house, though, leans unabashedly into the Tudor charm, and at some angles seems more like a supersized cottage plucked right out of the English countryside, especially the turret that stands proud at the western end. 

But what makes the home truly impressive is the view of Puget Sound that is visible even from the driveway. Ben whistles lowly as the car slows to a stop before the house.

“ _Damn._ ”

Miranda merely sniffs and then jumps in her seat when a pale set of knuckles raps against her window. The face of a young, twenty-something woman leans down and smiles beamingly as Miranda rolls down the window.

“Good Evening!” the girl greets enthusiastically. “Names please?”

“Excuse me?” Miranda drawls. Chuckling nervously, Ben pats Miranda’s thigh.

“Miranda Bailey and Ben Warren,” he answers, and the girl uses one of her French-tipped nails to scroll on iPad screen balanced in the crook of her arm.

“Oh, yes, here we are! Drs. Bailey and Warren, welcome! Complimentary valet will be happy to park your car while I show you inside.”

“Valet?” Miranda squawks. “Of all the bougie—it’s not like we are going to a gala the Ritz!”

“It’s thoughtful,” Ben counters, turning off the ignition. “We spend less time trying to park and more time partying. Plus, it’s free. I’m not arguing with free.”

Miranda grumbles something under her breath but still climbs out of the car and, along side Ben, follows the perky host inside. As they enter, a mix of chatter and low jazz welcomes them, a few dozen people already mingling in the open space layout.

_Cozy_ Ben think as he gets a good look around. Though the house is located in a posh, secluded enclave, nothing inside of it screams “expensive,” but there is plenty that exudes comfort. The overall color palette is warm, the walls a Tuscan mustard yellow, the wooden accents a darkly stained oak. The furniture too fits well into the theme, both the large sectional couch and surrounding armchairs a soft tawny brown, and guests are comfortably lounging as they converse and balance small plastic plates on their laps.

The atmosphere seems to have the same calming effect on Miranda, because the tension in her shoulders visibly evaporates.

“This…is very nice,” she concedes. Before Ben can agree, another voice, one fringed with the slight tremor of nerves, chimes in.

“Thank you, Dr. Bailey!” The couple turns to find the men of the hour behind them, Schmitt nearly flush against Kim’s side, while Kim’s fingers sit on Schmitt’s hip.

“You’re welcome, Schmitt,” Miranda replies. “It really is a lovely home.”

“And so close to the water,” Ben adds appreciatively. “I bet you have some pretty spectacular views.” Nodding, Kim smiles, but the grin doesn’t match the cold, wary stare of his eyes.

“We do,” he says. “One is right outside the patio doors if you care to take a look.”

“We might just do that,” Ben chuckles, and then a moment of awkward silence passes. Schmitt glances up Kim, whose dark eyes dart around, taking stock of the guests and their positions.

“Oh, here,” Miranda says as she digs around in her clutch and produces a blue envelope. “Congratulations on both your new home and your engagement.”

“Th-thank you!” Schmitt squeaks, accepting the gift. “You really didn’t have to.”

“Yes I did,” Miranda deadpans. “I’ve met your mothers, so I know better than to show up empty handed.”

Ben starts. One of Miranda’s most endearing qualities is her straightforwardness, but that dig was too blunt for the setting. He begins to scramble for ways to smooth the ruffles over, yet, strangely, neither Kim nor Schmitt appear offended. Quite the opposite, actually.

“Yeah,” Schmitt laughs. “I suppose you right. Well, thank you for coming Dr. Bailey and Dr. Warren. We really appreciate it.”

“Yes, thank you,” Kim agrees. “Now, if you will excuse us, we need to say ‘hello’ to our other guests. If you’re hungry, please help yourself to the buffet that’s in the kitchen. It’s right down the hall to the left. That’s where you’ll find the bar too.”

The grooms-to-be take their leave, and once he is sure they are out of earshot, Ben turns to Miranda.

“Did Kim seem a little jumpy to you?” he asks.

“He’s an alpha with a new house and a new, pregnant fiancé,” Miranda points out unconcernedly. “If you alphas are anything, it’s territorial. Also, being mated I think has made them both more sensitive to their instincts. Kim is probably fighting the urge to knock out every other alpha here, and I’d be surprised if he lets Schmitt out of arms reach at all tonight.”

Ben nods. Yes, alphas are territorial alright, especially when under the weight of mounting stress. He no longer keeps count of how many times he has entered a burning building only for an alpha to take a swing at him for trying to carry them or their family to safety

“I’m so sorry,” they would always say afterwards. “I don’t know what came over me.” Which is fine, because Ben knows exactly what had come over them—a primal sense of preservation, one that does not discriminate between strange flames that harm and strangers come to help. As far as their animal brain is concerned, neither flame nor firefighter should be there, in their home, their territory, their safe space at all, and therefore both should be eliminated.

If Kim is in fact more entuned with his instincts, then this overabundance of guests, some he barely knows and a few he doesn’t know at all, must be like watching an outlet spark over and over again, forcing him to keep watch so that he will be ready to extinguish any flame that does erupt. 

Ben is certain, however, that Kim’s vigilance will prove unnecessary. It’s a party—a party for two very joyous occasions. Who here would be so reckless to stoke the flames in someone else’s home and on such a special night?

Not even the arrival of the Chief of Surgery is going to stop Jo from stuffing her face. Kim’s parents must be way more loaded than she initially thought, because heaven in its entirety is spread before her: crab cakes, crab legs, crab Rangoon, lamb chops, Swedish meatballs, spinach artichoke dip, cheddar cheese dip, steak and prosciutto skewers, basil and tomato topped bruschetta, bite-sized brie pastries, caprese salad, stuffed mushrooms, glazed bacon wraps, shrimp cocktails, mini-loaded potatoes, beef wellingtons, baked oysters, platters upon platters of freshly cut fruit—and that is just the offerings of the first of three savory-themed tables. And the dessert buffet? Well, the mere sight of it is enough to put anyone into a diabetic coma, but Jo has made it her mission not to leave tonight without first having sampled every one of its mouthwatering treats.

“Jesus, Jo,” Link chuckles he peers down at her plate, “did you bring two extra stomachs with you tonight?”

“Can we make that a thing?” Jo queries as she plops a stuffed mushroom into her mouth. “A Michelin chef catered, and I only have one stomach to fit all of this food into. Having three would be extremely helpful.”

“Or,” Link replies, “you could be more selective. It certainly would be easier than trying to figure how to cramp three stomachs into a cavity designed for only one.”

“Hey!” barks Jo through half-mashed mushroom. “No one asked you to rain on my parade with your logic.”

“Somebody has to,” Jackson says as he joins them. “If not for your own sake, then for the sake of your gut. The poor thing is going to be in so much pain by the end of tonight.”

“The only thing causing me pain is you two,” Jo, swallowing, huffs. “Stop pretending you don’t want to go to town and grab a plate already.”

The two men look at each and hold a stern gaze, only for it break apart into laughing rumbles as they do reach for plates. Smirking, Jo begins to peruse an assortment of over a dozen cheeses.

“So, where’s your better -looking half?” she asks Link. “Did she decide to stay home with the mini-you?”

“No, she’s here,” Link answers, his demeanor suddenly dimming. “She’s outside with Maggie, who’s trying to talk her down.”

“Talk her down from what?” Adding a helping of spinach artichoke dip to his plate, Link sighs.

“…Meredith got some news from her lawyer. …It’s not good.”

“How ‘not good?’”

Qadri pops up beside Jackson like a freakin’ jack-in-the-box, startling Jo so much she nearly drops her treasure-laden plate. Qadri, looking very pretty in a peach al-amira, at least has the decency to blush.

“I, uh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” Her blush deepens, and she abruptly turns to Jackson. “Do you drink red or white? I don’t drink, but they’re serving sparkling grape juice at the bar, and I figured that I would get you something while I’m there.”

“Red is fine, thanks,” Jackson answers smoothly, and Qadri flits away like a nervous fledging testing out her wings for the first time. Once she is gone, Jo snorts.

“An intern? Really?” Jackson’s eyebrows knit together.

“What?”

“After all of these years,” she sneers, “after everything you’ve seen _and_ been through, what makes you think an intern and a department chief is a good idea? And please don’t say Grey and Shepherd—they were the exception that proves the rule. I mean, would it really have killed you to go stag for one night?”

“Lay off,” Jackson snaps defensively. “It’s one date. And, besides, this is practically a work function.”

“Except it’s not,” Jo refutes. “It’s an engagement party. Romantic and personal. By bringing an intern here for one night, you give that intern ideas and heart eyes. Qadri seems nice enough, but she’s an intern, and interns are puppies that make messes and need to be housebroken. Puppies who are lovesick over someone that they can’t keep are even harder to train. So, from now, whatever messes she makes are now yours to clean up.”

Jackson’s handsome face hardens as he snatches a fistful of bacon wraps and then strides off toward the bar on the other side of the large kitchen.

“Well, that was awkward,” Link sighs.

“Not as awkward as it’s going to be when Qadri tells him she can’t eat pork,” Jo, a little too self-satisfied, says.

“Maybe he and Qadri will work out,” he poses. “Maybe the next engagement party we’ll go to will be theirs.” 

“Just about anything in the world can ‘maybe’ happen, Link,” Jo replies, her voice dipping into a pool of solemnity. “But most maybe’s don’t happen. No matter how much they almost do.”

_Aren’t I living proof?_ she doesn’t add. As an omega who was discarded at birth and then again and again as she grew, she never expected to find an alpha who respected and honored her, because her story and history had taught her that, in the end, omegas are always left behind. Then Alex had come along, bringing with him that insidious _maybe_. Maybe he really did like her. Maybe he really did love her. Maybe he really would propose. Maybe they really would make it. Maybe she would be happy.

And then he left and took all the maybe’s with him….

Shaking her head, Jo takes a deep breath. Not tonight. Alex doesn’t get to ruin tonight, the night she is celebrating a fellow omega and friend who has not just clenched “maybe” but also “impossible.” No, he doesn’t get to take tonight away too.

So, pushing Alex down, down, down until he disappears into the shadows of her mind, she grins broadly at Link.

“So, Ortho God, explain to me why you can’t use your divine powers to move around a couple ribs to give me enough room for three stomachs?”

Once or twice, Taryn has wondered if Nico Kim had been created in a lab. No one, she had reasoned with herself, is naturally that good-looking _and_ naturally that intelligent _and_ naturally that talented. Now, however, she realizes that he comes from a truly ridiculously rich gene pool, both literally and figuratively. 

“How is that humanly possible?” marvels Jayla, Casey’s surprisingly cool and laidback partner. “Statistically, there is one ugly duck in every family and several average looking people.”

“Maybe they weren’t invited,” Casey suggests, but Taryn doubts that. Contrarily, she is fairly certain every Kim uncle, aunt, and far-flung cousin is here, the clan filling up a good third of her best friend’s new living room, and each, regardless of age or gender, is stunningly gorgeous. In tailored suits and designer cocktail dresses, they mingle as an impeccably styled mix, greeting one another in Korean and English interchangeably, and effortlessly ignore the rest of the guests like Olympian deities who can’t be bothered to come down from on high.

Well, almost all are steadily disregarding any non-Kim, but there is a young, devastatingly posh woman in a silky red jumpsuit whose dark walnut browns keep flicking toward the half circle of doctors. And when she tracks the woman’s stare to Dr. Pham, Taryn can’t blame her one bit. It takes all of Taryn’s willpower to keep her eyes from swiveling to her immediate left, where Pham, clad in a curve-hugging cobalt cocktail dress, stands with a champagne flute in hand and grins when Levi squeezes through the crowd of well-wishers to join them.

“Finally detached yourself from your alpha’s hip, I see,” Pham purrs. Levi blushes and looks down at his shoes.

“He only let you out of his sight because you promised to stick close to us, right?” Taryn asks, and Levi’s deepening blush is the affirmative answer. Lately, Taryn has come to understand that Kim has a hierarchy of who can and cannot be trusted around his mate. Casey and she sit comfortably near the top of that hierarchy, and Pham has probably earned a middling rank. So if Kim has to divert his attention elsewhere during an invasion of his home, he would be more at easy knowing Levi is in the safety of their company.

“I think it’s sweet,” Jayla admires. “It’s obvious how much you mean to him.”

“Yeah,” Levi murmurs. He smiles a mushy, sillily happy smile, and if she didn’t have an aversion to cute-and-sappy, Taryn might have found it adorable.

“Whatever,” she groans, rolling her eyes. “You’re so in love, yadda, yadda. Can we please get to back to the synthetic perfect humans?”

“You mean Nico’s family?” Levi asks, brow furrowed.

“Seriously,” Casey says, “did their ancestor make a deal with the devil for eternal youth and beauty?”

“I asked Nico once,” Levi replies seriously. “He had no idea what I was talking about.”  
“Well, when you grow surrounded by extraordinary beauty,” Pham muses, “maybe you never recognize it as beauty. It’s just normal.”

“Oh, they know just how extraordinary they are,” Taryn huffs, snorting. Pham tips her flute to her smiling lips.

“Well, maybe in a few weeks,” she murmurs, “You and Schmitt can compare notes.” She glances back toward the huddle of Kims, and Taryn’s eyes, following with quirked eyebrows, find the woman in red staring back.

“What—no!” she balks. “She’s looking at you! Not me!” Smile broadening, Pham lightly shakes her head.

“Please take what I am about to say as a statement of fact,” she replies, “and not as an insult. You are an intern, and I’m an attending with about a decade of experience on you. My skills of observation and deduction are superior to yours. So know I’m right when I say that in about five seconds that very stunning woman is going to come over here and lay her charm down on you like peanut butter.”

Taryn gapes, fishing for the words of rebuttal, except her nets come up empty as the woman in red indeed slinks over, her walnut eyes now obviously and undeniably pinned on Taryn.

Levi’s hazel-blue eyes glint with understanding as he greets her.

“Hi Piper.” The woman flicks a wave of her long, red-brown bob over her shoulder and grins, her rose-pink lips glistening with lip gloss.

“Levi,” Piper says in a velvety voice. “Divine party. Are these some of your friends?” With far too much glee, Levi goes around the circle, pointedly saving Taryn for last.

“Piper is one of Nico’s cousin,” Levi says to finish the introductions. “She runs a real estate firm here in town.”

“Not exactly the same gravitas as saving lives, I know,” Piper drawls, “but it pays the bills.”

Arrogant. So arrogant. Another family a trait apparently. But not unearned arrogance, Taryn begrudgingly acknowledges. She has no doubt that Piper’s firm traffics only in elite, luxury properties and banks millions over brunch.

“Schmitt,” Pham addresses smoothly, “I saw you talking to a man in a blue blazer earlier—the one with green eyes. Do you mind introducing me? I overheard him talking about Whipple techniques, and I’d like to point out all the ways he is wrong.”

“You mean Arthur?” Levi replies readily. “Sure, he’s an old classmate of mine. Follow me.” He and Pham haven’t quite fully turned to leave when Jayla seizes Casey’s arm and begins to tug him away.

“We’re going get to get some cake!” she announces, and the most Casey can offer Taryn is an apologetic half-smile before he disappears into the crowd.

“I’m not sure I would want friends that throw me so easily to the wolves,” Piper chuckles.

“Friendships I’m rethinking,” Taryn grounds out. Levi and Casey better believe that they would pay for this later. “And are you saying you’re a wolf and that I should be scared? If you’re trying to charm me, you’re doing a terrible job at it.”

Piper grins, her magnificent face lighting up, and Taryn knows that Piper has seen right through her lie.

“Nico promised me that if I came, I’d might just meet a woman who’s exactly my type,” Piper hums, smiling all the while. “Blonde with a clever tongue. I have to say, I’m glad I came.”

Despite not wanting to give any smirking, arrogant Kim the satisfaction, Taryn can’t stop herself from grinning back.

Most things don’t intrigue Natalie anymore, and most people don’t either. They’re predictable, pathetically so, and while some people choose to believe in humanity’s good nature, Natalie believes only in its selfishness. It’s a belief that has served her well and has kept her perpetually on the winning side.

But there is something about Dr. Vikram Roy that utterly fascinates her, and try as she might, she can’t figure him out and has yet to accurately predict his next move. 

“Why are you here?” she asks him as she leans over the nurse’s station desk, behind which he is sitting and hunched over a chart. He jolts his head up and stares at her like a buck caught in the headlights.

“I-I,” he stutters. “I’m here because Dr. Koracick—”

“Tonight,” she clarifies with a bemused smile. “Why are you here tonight instead of the engagement party?”

Roy sags into his seat.

“Oh… I wasn’t invited.”

“Really? Dr. Qadri went, I’m told.” A minor lie—Natalie has made it her business to know which interns and residents are on staff tonight, because children left alone too long will find the knives and the matches. Bailey might think she is overacting by spending her Friday night at Grey Sloan, but the hair on the back of Natalie’s neck has refused to settle since she learned that all of the chiefs and most of the attendings would be absent, the tell-tale sign that Natalie is about to be hit with a mountain of paperwork and a headache just as large.

So, she had gone over all the names, playing a game with herself to see if she could guess which one would be the cause of the oncoming migraine, and had been surprised to come across Roy’s name. Part of her, she admits, had groaned. The guy had already been the source of immense aggravation not too long ago, and it hadn’t been much of a leap to think he might be again.

Yet, here he is exactly, where he is supposed to be…not what Natalie had been expecting at all.

Intriguing.

“She wasn’t invited either,” Roy goes on. “She ended up going as someone’s plus one, which is good, I guess. She really wanted go.”

“And you didn’t’?” Natalie, truly curious, asks.

“Qadri wants to belong,” Roy replies, “and she deserves to belong. She didn’t do anything wrong, not really. Not like me.”

“Humility,” Natalie muses. “Not a trait typically found in alphas.”

“Well,” Roy titters mirthlessly, “pride never did me much good. …Or made me good for others.”

It’s not an act, the guilt, nor the desire to make amends. 

Intriguing. So very intriguing.

She might have dug a little deeper to see what other surprises she could find, except the scent she has been waiting for all night hits her nostrils, and they flare as she straightens her spine.

“Do you know what panic smells like, Dr. Roy?” she inquiries. Hesitantly, he shakes his head.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Oniony,” she informs him. “Like freshly sliced scallions to be specific. Like—” She pivots on the ball of her foot and rests her elbows on the lip of the desk as a tall and tan female resident powerwalks past. “— _You_.”

The resident freezes, only her head whipping toward Natalie to stare at her with swollen blue-green eyes.

“Dr. Hartford,” Natalie sighs. “Chief Resident. Whatever mess you are trying to clean up in order to save face, I promise you’re just making it worse.”

Hartford starts to sputter out denials, and Natalie only half listens, because she already knows what lies and then excuses Hartford will give. Because people are predictably self-serving. Remembering, though, the intern who sits behind her, she amends this philosophy to account for the occasional exception.

Teddy is aware that she is not being very discrete, but she can’t help it: a triad. An actual _triad_. On the other side of the room, chatting with Bailey and Warren, is Evans, his _two_ dates standing on either side of him. They seem perfectly natural as a set of three, their presences fitting together like a puzzle, and Teddy can’t piece it together.

That’s an option? Not choosing one or the other because you can choose both? Loving both at the same time openly? Having them love each other too, or at least both accepting the necessity of the other?

No one had told her that. It’s always been have your cake or eat it. Stop waffling. Pick one heart and stick to it. Love divided is not love at all.

Maybe, though, that is too simplistic. Maybe eros is capable of binding more than just two souls together. Maybe if she had understood that sooner, she wouldn’t be where she is now, torn between two very different men who can’t stand the sight of each other.

Her chest throbs with what might be envy as Evans rests one hand the small of his blonde date’s back while he uses the other to squeeze the hand of his brunette one. 

She could stare at them and turn the Rubik’s cube that they are over and over in her mind all night. But then Bailey, pulling her cell phone out of her clutch, answers a call, and her face goes still and ashen—the very same face she makes when a sudden complication throws a lethal wrench into a surgery.

Simultaneously, right behind her, is the deafening shatter of glass—her world at last imploding.

Levi only wants a moment of reprieve. After introducing Dr. Pham to Arthur, he had slipped away to allow her to correct Arthur’s “gross misguidance on Whipple techniques”--apparently her code for flirting—and had come outside for fresh air and space. It’s overwhelming, all the eyes on him and Nico. Of course, most of those eyes belong to people who love and care for them, people who would never do them harm, but it still feels like a dissection, dozens of scalpels cutting deep into skin and fascia.

_If I knew how_ , he longs to shout, _if I knew why, I would tell you_. _I would tell you!_

But, then again, he doesn’t owe anyone but Nico anything. It’s no one’s business why he, of all people, has been blessed. Why he gets to be this happy.

_I’m happy, and that’s okay. I get to be happy._

Maybe if he repeats this mantra enough to himself, he’ll believe it.

“Wow, this really is a breathtaking view.”

Dr. Shepherd’s arms are crossed tightly across her chest as she comes up from behind, her breath a misty shroud in the March air.

“Yeah,” Levi says, hoping she’ll chalk his shaky words up to the chill and not nerves. “It’s what really sold us on this house. That, and the school district.”

“You bought this house,” she says with an eerie calmness, “with the settlement money from the hospital, right?” She poses it as a casual question, but Levi recognizes immediately that it is not so much question as accusation and shallows.

“I—”

“Meredith,” Dr. Shepherd presses on, “is an owner of the hospital. So, she’s paid already for what happened.”

Levi’s skin prickles as a wave of cold slams into him.

“I have the utmost respect for Dr. Grey,” he cries. “And, as far the money—”

“If you respect her so much,” cuts off Dr. Shepherd, a tendril of mockery curling in her tone, “then tell the Bonding Bureau to back off and let her keep her license. She can’t do what she was put on this earth to do without it.”

Another wave, and Levi sways under its weight.

“I’m sorry,” he pushes out, “but I don’t have control over what the Bureau does. I did ask them to let it go—”

Dr. Shepherd whirls on him, and he stumbles two steps back.

“She’s Meredith Grey!” she hisses. “She’s made monumental contributions to the field of medicine! She has saved countless lives, both with her own hands and with the hands of others. There is still so much she has left to do, but she might never get to finish her work. Because of you. And you’re nobody. You’re an insignificant speck of dust that will never make it an inch as far as her. Who are you to put her out! You—”

“ _Amelia!_ ” 

Dr. Lincoln’s voice is a life saver tossed out into storm waves, but it’s too late. A tidal wave has shoved Levi far below the surface. 

He can’t hear, a roar rushing in both of his ears.

He can’t breathe, his throat clogging with apologies and supplications.

He can’t see, salty tears flooding his eyes.

Deaf, dumb, and blind, he wobbles toward what he hopes is the patio door. Nico… He just wants Nico.

And Nico is all he is thinking of when the shrieking of breaking glass resuscitates his senses just in time for pain to register.


	10. Month Three, Part 4: If These Shadows Do Offend

Owen is not looking for a fight. Honest. He had come to this party with his best foot forward, promising himself that he would do all that is within his power to rekindle whatever embers still smolder between him and Teddy. All necessary ingredients are within arm’s reach: the low, seductive rhythm of jazz; the shimmer of Teddy’s sequin wrap dress; and the overall romantic aura of the occasion.

But all of it is lost on him. While all around him guests couple up, eager to flirt and tease, Owen only feels the cold distance between him and his pair. Mentally, he traces the cracks in their bond, the fissures that seem to widen and stretch a little more with each passing day, and tonight is no different. It certainly doesn’t help that Teddy couldn’t be more disinterested in him this evening, her attention fixated decidedly elsewhere and leaving him tipping dangerously on the edge of resignation.

And then Koracick bumps into him. Bumps into him and grumbles a wimpy “sorry.”

Sorry? He’s _sorry_?

For what? For bumping into him? For walking on, one of the spectacularly pretty Kim cousins on his arm? For grinning wolfishly at her, his happiness as much on display as his canines?

For having the gall to enjoy himself while Owen is scrambling for a foothold to cling to as he tumbles down a hill of misery, a fall he initiated?

Sorry? Sorry? All the bastard can offer him is _sorry_!

Something snaps in Owen. Fissures meet and complete the severance. He and Teddy can’t come back from this, and that sudden realization has him charging like a feral beast. He dives, launching the weight of his body into the air and right into Koracick’s middle. They go flying, tumbling together through a wall that shatters and explodes around them, and Owens grin as the shards slice into his skin. 

If he’s going down, he sure as hell isn’t going down alone.

Dahlia intends to step outside only for a minute as she slips through the patio door and slides it shut behind her. She needs a moment to recalibrate and calm herself down so that she can salvage what she can of this date. She doesn’t need to have been the first in her class to know it isn’t going well. Dr. Aver—Jackson is just as suave and chivalrous as Dahlia had expected him to be, but at the same time, his words to her are stilted, enough so that she can’t blissfully ignore it. And it doesn’t help that the other attendings have looked at him like he has lost his mind for bringing her. Wilson hadn’t bothered to conceal her disgust and skepticism, which Dahlia is loathed to find infectious.

Why had Jackson brought her? Him asking her to the party had been the first time they had spoken in any personal capacity since her return to Grey Sloan, and, at the time, she had been too starstruck to confront the question of “why me?” But now, as she retreats into the cold, she cannot hide from it.

_Why me? Why pick me? Why—_

Her spiraling thoughts cut short as she takes note of Levi coming toward her, his hazel eyes welling with tears. Her own insecurities forgotten, she is about to ask him what is wrong when out of the corner of her eye she catches through the patio doors the sight of a blur of bodies hurdling at neck-break speed.

Later, she won’t remember her brain formulating a plan, only her feet suddenly pounding the ground. Sprinting, she grabs Levi’s elbow and twists, putting herself between him and the eruption of glass. Glinting splinters tear through her eggshell pink dress and embed themselves into her back, and she yelps, careening hard and fast to the ground. Levi falls with her and lands half on top of her, his weight forcing her forearm down into pavement elbow first. 

There is a crack, a scream, and then black.

When Nico spots Taryn alone with Piper in the corner of the living room, the bottom of his stomach drops out. His instincts screech at him to find his mate, and he abandons his mother halfway through a sentence about why it is not appropriate for her to book his and Levi’s honeymoon. His search for Levi has only begun when the room rocks and rolls with screams and shouts overlaid with the unmistakable dissonance of breaking glass.

He leaps through the crowd, pushing through to where his patio doors should have been, except the plane of glass is gone, shattered into innumerable pieces scattered from the hardwood of the living floor, over the threshold, and out onto the patio. And, just beyond there, is Levi, struggling to heave himself off a female form.

He is running again, jumping over two other bodies and half-mindedly dodging the larger shards of glass. Levi has managed to roll to his side by the time Nico gets to him and is reaching out for the left arm of the woman—Qadri, Nico passingly notes—which is bent at a sickening angle, bone protruding through pink cotton and beige skin.

“Levi!” Nico cries, gathering the omega close to his chest and scanning for any signs of injury. Thankfully, mercifully, save for red-rimmed eyes and a smattering of small cuts, Levi is unscathed, at least on the outside. The baby—they’ll have to go to the hospital to makes sure the baby is okay too. But, for this one moment, Nico knows Levi is not in any mortal danger and that is enough.

“Dah-lia,” Levi croaks, still reaching for her. “Her arm…”

“I got it.” Where Link comes from, Nico doesn’t know. He’s just there suddenly, kneeling beside Qadri and so very carefully looking her arm over. 

“She could have a concussion,” adds another voice flatly, and Nico registers that Shepherd is standing a few feet away, her arms crossed. “She hit her head pretty hard. She’ll need a CT.” 

Levi shakes as she speaks, so Nico growls at her when she tries to come closer. Link’s blue eyes swiftly bounce from him to Amelia, and he frowns.

“I got it,” Link repeats commandingly. Shepherd parts her lips, perhaps to protest, but Pierce materializes and drags her away by the bicep, passing Avery as he jogs through the jagged doorway. His green gaze falls upon Qadri, and he whirls around, ferally prowling to the still rolling men. He pulls a foot back and _kicks_ , plowing the toe of his shoe into one of their stomachs, separating them. 

Nico will be sure to remember to buy him a drink for that later.

Avery winds up another kick and has started to swing when Bailey grasps him by the shoulder.

“Enough,” she orders with a general’s authority. “Duke it out later. Right now, I need all my chiefs back at the hospital. There was a pile-up on I-90 and instead of paging their superiors like intelligent, competent doctors, the residents have attempted to carry out both brain surgery _and_ a transplant. So, Owen, Koracick, find the sense that good Lord gave you, and. Get. Up.”

Pinching the skin between her eyebrows, Bailey exhales sharply and then turns with softened eyes to Nico and Link.

“Ambulances are coming,” she tells them. “Wait for them, and then bring Qadri and Schmitt to the hospital. We’ll get Qadri’s arm straighten out and Schmitt looked over. Parker and Helm are the only residents who will be allowed near them.”

Then, giving not a millimeter for argument, she marches away, and the world, which had seemed to be moving at slow motion, abruptly catches up with itself, and Nico and Levi are surrounded by a hurricane of people: Their mothers both fussing over Levi. Evans dutifully and calmly examining Levi’s abdomen. Helm and Parker hovering, ready at the hand to follow whatever instructions Link is sure to give. Avery and Wilson herding guests away.

It would be easy to get lost in it, all the flurry of activity and panic, but Nico has Levi safe and secure in his arms, and the weight keeps him grounded and on the sane side of his still screaming instincts.

Maggie prays that Amelia says nothing. That she just stays silent for the entire ride to Grey Sloan. But, of course, Amelia doesn’t.

“Maggie,” she says quietly, “back there, what I said to Schmitt—”

“—was cruel,” Maggie interjects. “It was cruel.” She nails each word with a bolt of finality, but they fail to sink in, because Amelia opens her mouth once more.

“I just was trying to help—”

“Who?” Maggie sneers, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “Meredith? How does saying those things help her? If I were Schmitt, the first thing I would do Monday morning is call the Bonding Bureau and report every single horrible word you said. Do you think the Bonding Bureau will be inclined to go easy on Meredith then?”

“Maggie—”

“Shut up Amelia!” she shouts. Her eyes stay glued to the V-shape of white the headlights paint onto the road. “You’ve said enough! And what’s worse it’s that you said in a way to cause the maximum amount of pain. You picked Schmitt, because Kim would’ve rightfully told you where to shove it. You picked Schmitt, you waited until he was alone, and then you gutted him. In his _home_. At his engagement party! For something that’s not his fault! Because, no matter how what lies you tell yourself, Meredith did something wrong, and not for the common good either.”

She pauses to inhale, but she’s not quite finished.

“I didn’t know you could be,” she says, “so awful. You were awful. So, I need you to shut up so I have a chance to convince myself that you are not an awful person…no matter how awful you were tonight.”

Now she is finished, and neither she nor Amelia speak again for the rest of the ride.


	11. Month Four, Part 1: Something Blue

The point of vacation, Catherine has been told, is to rejuvenate oneself—to kick back, relax, and ultimately return fresher and stronger than when you were upon departure—but as her cab rolls up to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, she is only utterly and thoroughly drained.

Hours ago, when Natalie’s name had lit up her smartphone screen, Catherine knew she would be getting no sleep and certainly no rest. After Natalie’s perfunctory report, Catherine had booked the first flight from Napa County to Seattle, and, though it is now technically morning, the night is still very much in control of the sky when her plane lands. Her suitcase drags behind her like a ball and chain, and Natalie eyes it distastefully as she meets Catherine in the lobby.

“When I called you,” Natalie in lieu of “hello” says, “I did not mean for you to come running on the red-eye.” The only clue that gives away the fact Natalie has been working over twelve hours straight are the very faint beginnings of dark circles beneath her wintery blue eyes. Other than that, she is impeccably dressed in a fitted pinstripe pantsuit, not a wrinkle in sight, and Catherine can’t help but feel envious. She is certain she looks every hot-mess minute of the two-hour, mid-night flight she just took.

“You can’t tell me my hospital is burning,” she drawls, “and expect me to keep on drinking Chardonnay.”

“Why not?” Natalie challenges. “If a burning hospital is not a good enough reason to unwind with wine, what is?”

“Natalie, you know I adore your wit, but instead of trying to soften the blow with levity, I’d rather you didn’t spare me the details.”

The attorney, sighing, gives Catherine a withering look, one that warns her that she will regret asking, but Catherine has not flown all this way to be coddled. So, she levels a stare at Natalie, silently commanding her to get on with it.

So Natalie does.

“A trucker passed out at the wheel on I-90,” she begins, turning away and walking down the main hallway, Catherine following a step behind. “It’s not official yet, but all signs point to him being high out of his mind. His semi flipped and rolled four times. He walked away with only a scratch, but the people in the other dozen cars weren’t so lucky. “

“If it was that bad,” Catherine interjects, “why weren’t the attendings paged immediately? The pit had to have been flooded.”

“Isn’t that the multi-million-dollar question?” Natalie chuckles gravely. “I suppose the short answer is ego.”

“And the long answer?” requests Catherine. They have reached the elevator bank, and Natalie uses a crimson red nail to push the “up” button.

“Most of the attendings were at Drs. Kim and Schmitt’s engagement party, so the senior residents took their absence as an opportunity to prove their metal. Unfortunately for all involved, the injuries were far more severe than expected. Worst of the lot was a young family of four. Mom and daughter D.O.A. Dad suffered a penetrating wound to the abdomen, and son took a blow to the head that resulted in a brain bleed.”

Catherine’s heart thunders with dread as the elevator doors slide open with robotic jingle. 

“Don’t tell me,” she hisses as they step onto the lift. “The unauthorized brain surgery—”

“Yes,” Natalie confirms unflappably over the muted whooshing of the doors closing. “A handful of residents decided to slice open up the skull of a thirteen-year-old.”

The dread threatens to choke the lifeblood right out of Catherine’s heart. A child. The victim of her staff’s unforgivable arrogance is a _child_. A son. A brother. A brother—

“The transplant…” she mutters, a slight tremble shaking her words. “Was it…?”

“Yes,” Natalie says again, her voice steady but dimming. “The father donated both his wife and daughter’s organs. The daughter was a match for one of our patients—a four year-old.”

Four? Not just a child but a child barely out of infancy. A little precious, so very precious life.

“What, “ she seethes, “gave them the… the… the _gall_?” 

Natalie’s eyes stay lifted, intently watching light bounce from “Main” to “2,” but a delicate muscle in her jaw feathers.

“Do you really want me to answer that question?”

Catherine blinks.

“What is that supposed to be mean?” Natalie’s tone is matter-of-fact as she says,

“You can’t raise sharks, and then be outraged when there is blood in the water.”

Before Catherine can issue a retort, the light above illuminates “3,” and the elevator doors slide open. Natalie glides off the lift, and Catherine, befuddled, scrambles to catch up.

“I don’t raise sharks,” she hisses at Natalie’s back. “And where are you going? Your office is on five.”

“You raise sharks,” Natalie reiterates, gracefully rounding a corner. “I’ve heard Dr. Webber’s welcome speech. The man was hosting the Hunger Games long before the Hunger Games were thing. And I know where my office is, thank you very much—it’s my safe place. No, we are not going to my office.”

“Then where are we—”

Her heart seizes again, and her feet refuse to move an inch further.

“Why, _hello_ , Ms. Fox.”

Like Natalie, Sara Kim looks entirely too put-together for the hour. Standing idly in front of a closed door marked “Fellows’ Lounge,” she is glamorous in a silk patterned top and wide leg pants, and the outfit goes absurdly well with her cat-got-the-cream grin.

“Mrs. Kim,” Catherine sneers. Groaning, Natalie wags a pointer finger between them.

“No,” she says, “whatever lady-alpha pissing contest you two are gearing up for, do it later and preferably somewhere else. Right now, I need you two to go into that den and bring out your sons so they can start dealing with the broken bones and shredded skin currently flooding the ER.”

“Den?” Catherine, paling, echoes. “What den? Did Schmitt go into heat in this hospital again?” Sara’s smile flags and then twists, but Natalie speaks before she can spray whatever venom is pooling on her tongue.

“Fun fact—omegas build nests, usually for the purposes of heat and birth, while alphas build dens, exclusively for the purpose of protecting mates and pack from outside threats. Omegas don’t share nests, but alphas who are allied will—strength in numbers and all that. And your sons have decided to ally and have built a den in _there_.”

She points at the fellows’ lounge door before lacing her fingers together against her thighs, while Catherine looks quizzically from her to the closed door, her heart stopping and starting violently like a dying engine.

“Why would my son feel the need to build a den?” Catherine demands. Sara lifts her hands and begins to massage her temples, and a tiny twinge of satisfaction curls in Catherine’s stomach. At least Sara isn’t as unruffled as she looks.

“Two of your illustrious surgeons,” Sarah sighs, “brawled in my son’s home. Your son’s date got hurt pulling Levi out of the way. Mercifully, both she and Levi will be alright, but our sons…”

“—are near feral,” Natalie finishes, crossing her arms. “They will only let pack inside, and that’s a severely limited number of people. And they will only listen to people they recognize as their superior, and in their state, that’s an even fewer number people. You’re alphas and their mothers. If they don’t recognize you as their superiors, I don’t know who they will.”

A tidal wave of questions nearly topples Catherine over. Who brawled, and over what? And when did Jackson start seeing someone? Hadn’t he broken up with that firefighter months ago? Did they get back together, or is it someone else? What kind of woman makes her son go nearly feral? How long has he been feral? Is he even cognizant enough to recognize her? To hear her? She opens her mouth to ask as much, but Natalie has already turned and is walking away.

“Bring them out asap, please,” she says as she goes, “before some poor soul sits around too long in the ER and dies. I have enough paperwork to drown in.”

Catherine is speechless as she disappears, and exhaustion drills deeper into her bones and marrow.

It takes all of three seconds for Sara to survey the fellows’ lounge and deem it a lounge only in the most utilitarian sense. The room is clean yet gray, aesthetics not an afterthought but no thought at all. Maybe fellows don’t really rest, and this “lounge,” with its hideous wallpaper and mostly plastic furniture, is merely lip service for the idea of self-care, existing simply as a rebuttal against any worry of burnout.

And because it exists for the purpose of existing, it does not have much to offer her son by way of comfort, but he is luckier than Catherine’s son and his partner, who have had to make due with a pair of hard-back chairs. Nico, at least, has managed to commandeer the one couch in the room, and he is sprawled across it, Levi asleep in the protective embrace of his muscled arms. 

They’re both in their scrubs, Sara notes, as she pulls up a chair. Had Levi really operated after such a harrowing fall? She rips her lips apart to demand how Nico could have let him, but like a well-trained, battle-hardened solider, Nico senses the shot coming and cuts her off at the pass.

“He is only wearing them because it’s more comfortable,” he mutters, his gaze downcast and distant. “The clothes he was wearing before were full of glass.”

“…Is he…,” Sara hedges, “…and the baby…?”

“They’re okay,” Nico answers sharply. “Dr. Evans looked them over. There are some scraps, and there will probably be bruises, but they’re okay.”

His finishing tone is a clear dismissal, and glancing at the opposite side of the room, Sara sees that Catherine has received a similar reception, her son’s handsome bronze face distorted in a scowl. But neither of them has been outrightly ejected his mother, which their sons ought to know is as good as an invitation to stay.

“I was sent in here,” Sara says, crossing her legs, “to bring you out lest another lawsuit befall this hospital. But…this whole mess started because I didn’t listen to you. About what you want, I mean.”

To the untrained eye, Nico doesn’t respond at all, but Sara is his mother and has decades of observation and study in her back pocket, and she does not miss the ever so slight bob of his Adam’s apple. She has his attention, so the question then is how to spend it. Were she in a board room, she would probably bulldoze her way through the conversation—the only way she is heard over the constant mansplaining—but she is not in a board room. 

She is with her son. There is no need for blustering and bluffing.

“You don’t trust me,” she says, deciding on cold stone fact. “Me or your father—you haven’t trusted us for a long time.” Fleetingly, Nico’s dark oak eyes flash toward her, and she chooses to see the glimmer as encouragement to continue. “I suppose I wanted the chance to show you that you can. To prove to you that all we ever wanted is for you to be happy. …For us, success is inseparable from happiness, and that’s why we pushed you so hard. We realized too late that all our pushing made you think we didn’t care about what _you_ think makes you happy.”

Pausing, she curls her fingers into fists against her knees and takes a steadying breath.

“When it became obvious that Levi is intrinsic to your joy,” she goes on, “I wanted to show you that your father and I will cherish him, and I didn’t want to give you the chance to deny us that. So the more you pushed us away, the more I felt the need to push in. But I know now that by doing that, I was accomplishing the exact opposite of what I wanted. So, I will stop here.”

At last, Nico peers at her directly, and, with an exhale, Sara unfurls her fingers and lays her hands flat on her thighs.

“If you want a small wedding in your backyard or at city hall,” she murmurs, smiling softly, “okay. If you want a big shebang and a honeymoon in the Andes, okay. If you want to sit in here for however long, okay. You’re an adult now, and it Is not your fault that our father and I spent your adolescence with our heads in the sand. So, whatever your choices, Nico, I will do my best to respect them.”

For a long moment, Nico says nothing. Instead, he, returning his gaze to Levi, runs his palm along the curve of his mate’s head. It is excruciating, the quiet, but Sara endures it. She must keep to her word and give Nico the space and time he deserves.

Finally, after what seems like an age, Nico culls the silence with a muted mumble.

“…Stay with him. Please.” She nods.

“Of course.”

They do a strange imitation of a shuffle mixed with hot-potato, but they manage to not wake Levi as he is re-arranged so that his head is pillowed in Sara’s lap. Nico does not linger once the omega is settled and departs the den at a brisk pace that calls to mind the ripping off of a band aid—he must leave with his focus squarely on the tasks ahead, or he will never bring himself to go alone. And he only goes because he believes he has left his mate in good hands.

That’s something to be proud of, Sara thinks, as she observes that Catherine is still arguing with her own son. Nico might not trust her, not fully, but he has acknowledged her ability to safeguard what—who—is most precious to him. And, for now, she is content to rest her hat on that.

Cruel and worse. Twice. Amelia has been called _cruel and worse_ twice in little over a month, both times by the people closest to her. She wishes she could say outright that they are wrong.

But washing her hands under scaling hot water, she can’t even say it to herself, not when Schmitt’s shell-shocked face keeps scuttling across her mind. She probably would have inflicted less damage if she had just stabbed him in the heart instead.

She hadn’t meant to say all those things—all those horrifying things. Yet when she had laid eyes on Schmitt, his guileless blue-hazel eyes glittering with happiness as he surveyed a dazzling, moonlit view, she had recalled Meredith crumpled and defeated at their kitchen table and promptly had lost all sense of propriety. It hadn’t been until Link was yelling her name that Amelia had come back to herself. …Had realized that her mouth had shot a rapid fire of bullets at the young omega. Her subordinate. Her student.

How could her body possess both such a lethal weapon and expert healing hands, hands that can pull a child back from the brink of death after a fool had played around in his brain? How can she help and harm in such equally extreme measures?

She tries—and fails—to shake these thoughts as the door to the OR washroom squeaks and swings open. Turning the faucet off, she looks and instantly stills, the lingering, hot sting in her palms suddenly going numb.

Above his mask, Kim’s eyes stare at her impassively, and he is wordless as he pads his way over to the sink.

He is going to ignore her, Amelia realizes. He is aware of what she had said to his mate thanks to Link, who had made of a point of pulling Kim to the side once they all had arrived at the hospital. Link had wanted everyone to know that he had picked a side—and it wasn’t Amelia’s. Still, despite knowing what he knows, Kim says nothing to her as he reaches for the faucet beside her own and turns it on. So he intends to take the so-called high road and ignore her.

Well, she can’t let that stand. She can’t let herself be tossed so readily into the role of villain, because while she had said horrible things…did a horrible thing…she is not a horrible person. She is not.

“Dr. Kim,” she begins, swallowing, as Kim angles his left forearm under the steaming rush of water. “Dr. Kim, I…what I said—”

“With all due respect, Dr. Shepherd—” Kim says flatly. With his right hand, he has gathered a squirt of soap in the cradle of his palm and is beginning to lather up large, soapy circles along his arm. “—I don’t care.”

“Please, let me—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he interjects, moving on to scrubbing his right arm. “Whatever excuse or explanation or apology you have, it doesn’t matter. You told the person who means everything to me that he is worthless. So, it doesn’t matter what you have to say for yourself. I know all I need to know about you.”

He keeps his voice calm but the dangerous kind of calm, like the kind when birds to stop chirping in the middle of the day and the sky turns green. His calm is Amelia’s one and only warning. If she does not retreat and opts to stand her ground, the wind will begin to howl, the sky will turn black, and she will be swept up in the twister of his rage. 

The air is too riddled with her horrible bullets. It can’t be cleared, not tonight anyway. So she goes, retreating into the hallway, the cold at her back.


	12. Month Four, Part 2: Something Borrowed

“You want to proceed as planned?” cries Myrna, her fork lightly clanking against her plate of pasta as her grip on it slacks amid her surprise. She is louder than is polite, and the nearest other patrons of the little Italian café shoot her reproving glares. Sheepishly, she lowers voice back to a courteous volume. “Really?”

Nodding, Levi twirls his own fork until a fat spindle of spaghetti is twisted around its prongs.

“Yeah,” he confirms. “I mean, it doesn’t really make sense not to. Where are we going to get another venue or caterer or anything so late in the game? And this will probably make me sound hormonal or vain, but I really don’t want to look like a bloated balloon in my wedding photos.”

“Pregnant persons don’t bloat,” she corrects gently. “They glow.”

“They bloat,” her son insists. “ _I_ will bloat and swell and puff until I resemble a blimp, and I rather that not be immortalized in photo evidence.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Myrna muses, “Nico strikes me as the type who finds the idea of his omega…breeding with his child very attractive.” Having slipped his fork between his lips and onto his tongue, Levi nearly chokes on the ball of noodles.

“ _M-mom_!” he sputters, spewing spittle and sauce.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, honey,” she reprimands passingly as she picks up her fork again. “And what? Alphas are territorial beasts. They don’t like sharing, and what better way to say ‘This is mine. Don’t touch!’ than a big round, pregnant belly?”

“So you agree I’m going to big and round,” Levi mutters into his water glass, pink dusting his bristled cheeks.

“And beautiful,” she adds as she stabs a broccoli floret. “You’ll be beautiful.” _Because you are beautiful_ , she thinks as her molars sink into the tender vegetable. _My beautiful baby boy._

“You always be my baby”—that’s what parents tell their children as they grow. “No matter how old you get, you’ll always be my baby.” It’s a truth. And, at the same time, it’s a lie. True, in that in a parent’s heart of hearts, their child remains that tiny, fragile baby they labored so hard to bring into the world. And a lie, a terrible lie, because children do grow up. That’s the whole point and purpose of rearing a child: you bear them and then you raise them to leave you. To outlive you. 

And so, while Levi is and always will be her baby, he is also now someone’s mate and partner. Very soon, he will be someone’s husband and someone’s father, and Myrna… Well, she remains his mother, and as her role requires, she will slip slowly from the stage, drifting farther and farther from a main role to a supporting one.

She tries her best not to feel displaced. Aggrieved. It is the natural order of things, and regardless of how she feels on her worst day, the awkwardness that waxes and wanes between her and her son is not Nico’s fault. She is the one who needled Levi with her insidious prejudice, disguising her demands of suppression as thoughtful, well-meaning suggestions. If hadn’t been Nico, then someone else would have helped Levi lift the veil shrouding his truer self. Myrna is trying—really trying—to accept responsibility for her own words and actions. Still…she can’t help but feel like she is running out of time she hadn’t known was borrowed.

Urgently pushing this thought away, she swallows and then smiles.

“Did you and Nico decide on a destination for the honeymoon?” she asks, hopefully not too abruptly.

“La Jolla,” Levi announces as he begins to gather up another bite of his lunch. “Still in the jurisdiction of the American medical system, like Nico wants, and not too expensive, like I want. Plus, we are only going to be there for a few days, and it’s close enough that the flight won’t seem like a waste.”

“If you’re worried about the cost, I am sure Sara and James would be happy to cover it.” There might be a little venom cursing through her tone. Myrna doesn’t dislike her son’s in-laws. In fact, she admires Sara’s never-settle-for-less approach to life, finding it inspiring and so fantastically contrary to herself. But she is a tad jealous. Unlike her, Sara has the means to offer her son concrete assistance, and, bluntly put, she can buy a more permanent place in his life. Myrna, on the other hand, only has herself to offer, and Levi has plenty of reasons to conclude that isn’t enough.

“I guess,” Levi mumbles, “but it’s our honeymoon.” _Our life_ he doesn’t say. _Our life to live_. He doesn’t say, but Myrna hears it, and her heart lurches. 

Children grow up, forever young only in their parents’ eyes. Levi will come to learn this one day, and Myrna hopes he is better prepared for it than she is proving to be. She hopes he cherishes every minute with his baby and does not waste even one second like she had—not one—because once it has passed, it is gone, and you can never get it back.

Andrew finds April to be a refreshing reprieve from the dark and dank of March. The bright spring green brings definition and clarity to the landscape of his sister’s front yard, and vibrant purple demarks wild violets unfurling under the gently coxing sunlight.

He is making good progress, his ophthalmologist had proclaimed at his last visit. The surgery is yielding better results than expected, but while Carina had vibrated with joy and optimism, Andrew had coolly accepted the news for what it was—merely the fact that he isn’t going to be completely blind. His eyes will retain the ability to note color and general shape, which, he supposes, is a miracle from a surgical perspective. Under the thrall of instinct, Schmitt had, after all, aimed to maim. To gouge his eyeballs out completely and permanently from their sockets.

Truthfully, though, Andrew sometimes wishes Schmitt had never found his human self and stopped halfway. At least then there would be certainty. At least then Andrew would know that his career as a surgeon was over and could move on with a clean break from whatever life he had lived before.

Instead, he has been left with the simile of sight and the tatters and threads of hope. Admittedly, he deserves the agony of “maybe,” a fitting revenge on Schmitt’s part even if revenge had not been Schmitt’s intention. But it is also cruel, this little kernel of “possibly,” and it throbs in the meat of his muscles like a bruised nerve. _Possibly_ , his sight will recover enough. _Possibly_ , the medical board will be lenient and leave his medical license in place. _Possibly_ , he will get back the life he had before his DNA got the better of him. 

Possibly. Possibly. Possibly. A pulsing pit of pain.

And then there is Meredith. The very mention of her whips up a hurricane of emotion that threatens to rip him apart at the seams. He loves her as much as he ever has, and he resents her in equal measure. He pities her too, maybe more than anything else. Because if Meredith can never operate again, it won’t be because she can’t. She will still have the skill and the physical ability to perform surgery, just not the permission. If Andrew lose his license, he can take cold comfort in the truth he couldn’t operate even if he wanted to.

What will he say to her when they see each other again? Because there is going to be an again—Meredith will make sure of that—and he doesn’t know which emotion will come rising over him. How will he feel when he sees her and can’t really see her?

After that, will he be able to keep her? …Will he want to?

Mercifully, he is saved from having to answer himself as his ears pick up on the groaning squeak of a porch step, and refocusing, he makes out the silhouette of a tall man in a vaguely expensive suit, an inky blot of black against the backdrop of a budding spring.

“Dr. Deluca?” the stranger asks. “My name is Stance Newman, and I am here on the behalf of Ford Industries. Do you have time today for me to ask you a few questions?”

“No.”

Hartford blinks dramatically at Cormac, only recovering herself when he begins to briskly walk down the main hallway of the pediatric floor. Oh, yes, she has to be as much a fool as Cormac has decided she is, because if she had just one functioning brain cell, she would’ve recognized his dismissal as a warning to stay the bloody hell away from him.

‘I am s-sorry, Dr. Hayes,” she cries, scurrying after him. “I don’t understand. All I said is that I am on your service today—”

“And I said ‘no,’” he reiterates curtly. “As in, no, you are not on my service.”

“But the assignment list said—”

“I don’t care what the assignment list said,” he cuts in, his voice sharpened to a knife’s point. “You are not on my service today. Or tomorrow. Or the day after that.”

Hartford tucks her chin against her chest as her greenish blue eyes sweep the hallway, undoubtedly to ensure that no one is close enough to overhear her acknowledge her shame.

“If this is about what happened last week,” she half-whispers. “I didn’t know—”

“At first,” Cormac interrupts again, halting and rounding on her furiously. “You didn’t know _at first._ But when you did know, you hid it and nearly cost two children their lives. It was an exhibition of extraordinarily poor judgment and incompetency. I work with the most vulnerable, innocent patients, and they will not benefit from my service if it is weighed down by your stupidity. If I had it my way, you would be out of this program and banned from this hospital, but fortunate for you, I am not in charge—”

“No, you are not,” Bailey concurs as she comes up from behind Cormac. Planting herself between him and the chief resident, she waves a hand at Hartford.

“Go find a nurse and have them point you to the nearest scut that needs to be done,” she orders. Lingering, Hartford’s nose scrunches in disgust, and Bailey grits her teeth. “ _Now_.” Hartford scuttles off straight for the nurse’s station, and once she is out of sight, Bailey levels a cool glare at her Chief of Pediatrics.

“She shouldn’t be here,” Cormac says, crossing his arms. “She doesn’t deserve to be here, and my patients deserved to be helped by a doctor who does.”

“Well, those doctors are in short supply,” Bailey snaps. “I had to fire what equates to half a class of residents. More did deserve to be fired, Hartford, yes, being one of them, but we can’t afford to hemorrhage more residents than we already have. So the least offenders got to stay, and they will end up on your service at one point or another. Because as much as your patients do deserve better, they also deserve better than nothing, and that’s all we got right now.”

“What about Helm, Schmitt, or Parker?” Cormac pushes back. “Or Qadri? Hell, even Roy is preferable at this point!”

“Oh, you think you’re the only attending who wants the ‘good’ residents?” Bailey chuckles dryly. “I’ve got every one of you breathing down my neck about having them on your service. In fact, I just walked in on Pierce and Koracick trying to trade residents like Pokémon cards, and there will be none of that shenanigans—”

“I will take Hartford if you take Qadri, Dr. Hayes.”

Both Bailey and Cormac look to the right and discover Avery has joined them, his hands tucked unassumingly into the pockets of his lab coat.

Bailey’s narrowing eyes signal that danger is very near, but Cormac truly can’t abide Hartford’s pompous, idiotic ass being anywhere near his very small and very fragile patients and is not about to let this opportunity pass by. Besides, though his tenure at Grey Sloan has been short, he has been here long enough to know that consequences have no real weight to throw around so—

To hell with it.

“Done,” he tells Avery. Bailey’s upper lip curls like a hissing cat bearing its fangs.

“Did no one,” she grounds out, “hear what I just _said_? There will be no trad—”

“I almost decked a burn victim,” Avery exhales as he withdraws a hand from his pocket and rubs his chin. He then uses a pointer finger to roughly outline his stunning cheekbones. “The man is a model. He has third degree burns on over half of his literal moneymaker, and I want to punch him right in his singed, blistered flesh just because he told Qadri she has pretty eyes. I’d rather not do that, and I’m pretty you would rather me not do that. So, if Hayes takes Qadri, I’ll take Hartford.”

Bailey’s eyes widen to shocked pools of brown, and Cormac mildly wonders whether if her expression matches his own.

“Avery,” she queries breathily, “you and Qadri….?” She trails as off as Avery simultaneously raises his shoulders in a shrug and shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he confesses. “I don’t know why I am acting the way I am towards her. And I know I will need to figure it out sooner rather than later. I know. But…I just need to make it through today, Bailey. I just need not to punch my patient and make it through today.”

Just make it through today—it’s a plan of action Cormac can get behind. Just make it through today and do all you can to protect your patients. Just make it through today and don’t let ego get the better of you. Just make it through today and do no harm.

Yes, Cormac thinks as Bailey begrudgingly agrees to the trade, let’s all just make it through today.

Griffin Ford is used to having the upper hand. After all, he didn’t become a billionaire by letting others out negotiate him, and the richer he has become, the easier it has been to win. Regardless of whatever morals people preach, money always has the most power in any room and therefore the last say. So, it has been a long, long time since anyone succeeded in ambushing him, but today? Today, someone has.

“Apologies,” he says to the man and woman who have made themselves quite comfortable in his Barcalounger office chairs. “I didn’t realize I had a one o’clock.”

A stall of a welcome, and all three of them know it. They’re government, the pair. Their blasé, cheap suits give their occupation away before the badges they whip out do.

“Agent Jeanine Hamilton,” the woman replies before inclining her head toward her companion. My partner, Samuel Atkins. We are with the Bonding Bureau.”

Crap. _Crap_.

“And what brings agents of the illustrious BB to my humble little office today?”

Atkins and Hamilton share conspiratorially unimpressed look, a sign that they find his charisma and show of modesty lacking. They really are a different breed of civil servants, BB agents.

“One of your associates, a Mr. Newman,” Atkins drawls blandly, “paid a visit to Dr. Andrew Deluca this morning. Dr. Deluca found Mr. Newman’s line of questions…concerning. So he gave us a call.”

_Fuck_ —hadn’t Griffin told Newman to tread carefully and feel the doctor out before asking anything too explicit? To make sure that the male Dr. Deluca didn’t share the same stale mindset as the female one?

Taking a deep breath, Griffin tries to steady himself. He is down but not out, and so long as he plays his cards right, he can turn to this setback to his advantage.

“Dr. Deluca also told us you yourself paid a similar visit to his sister,” Hamilton adds. She rests her chin on her curled knuckles, a deceptively disarming gesture. “You are asking questions you shouldn’t be asking, Mr. Ford.”

“Why can’t I even talk to them?” he demands, his tone quickly switching to his business pitch tenor—smooth, seductive, yet subtly urgent and imploring. “The mated couple, I mean. There is so much we do, so much joy we could spread, if I could just talk to them—”

“It never ends with just talking, though, with men like you,” Hamilton interrupts. “You don’t like it when you don’t get what you want. You’re so convinced that you’re always right that the thought you could be wrong never even crosses your mind.”

“And the next thing you know a rocket is exploding over the city,” Atkins chimes in.

“I have a condition,” Griffin starts, but Hamilton snorts.

“Yes, we know, an awfully convenient aneurysm that flares up during bouts of poor judgment.” The way she phrases it, skewing the casual relationship with a deliberately crafted string of words, has Griffin’s mouth clamping shut as Hamilton and her partner stand.

“In the light of your _condition_ ,” she continues as they begin to make their way toward the door, “consider this your fair warning: harassing a mated couple is a federal felony. And if you think an exploding rocket was bad for your bottom line—” She pauses just inches away and slaps him with a feral grin. “—then you do not want us digging, because once we start, we won’t stop until we get to the _bottom_. Do you really want the world to know what kind of dirt your empire is built on?”

They go, leaving Griffin to pull out the cognac he keeps in his bottom desk drawer. He pours himself a half glass and then pads his way over to his window, which extends from floor to ceiling, offering a rapturous view of downtown Seattle.

The BB has his scent, he silently accepts, and if they send out their hounds, he is not likely to make it out of the swamp unscathed. But he can’t give up either, not when his investors are pulling out faster than a getaway car after the rocket debacle. To survive, to continue making the best use of his talents for the benefit of society, he needs this matchmaking app to bear fruit. To be prosperous. So, while he is at the disadvantage now, he won’t be down forever.

It is only a matter of time.


	13. Month Four, Part 3: Something Old

For all the complaining Koracick and Catherine have done about the Bonding Bureau, Miranda, frankly, had been expecting the agents of the near mythical department to be more, well, _anything_. More remarkable. More memorable. But the man and woman sitting across from her and sipping at coffee and cream as Catherine recounts her son’s inexplicably sudden possessive behavior over an intern he barely knows are completely, utterly average. Average face. Average build. Average clothes. Average—and forgettable—to the point that if Miranda had a knife to her throat and had to pick them out of a crowd to save her skin, she would simply hope that the slice is swift. They are like lobby art in that way, not hideous or difficult to visually ingest—just bland.

But, then again, maybe average is the point. Average and inconspicuous. You can’t really be a secret agent, Miranda supposes, if you are easily identifiable. Plus, as average as they appear, there is something about the way they move that hints there is more lurking beneath their veneers. Even the way Agent Hamilton sets down her coffee mug has an air of agility. The underpinnings of lethal, precise grace.

“My,” she says calmly to her partner. “I believe that’s a new record.” Nodding, Atkins lazily stirs his coffee with short, thin black straw.

“Only four months,” he muses. “Yes, I believe it is.”

Bracing her palms flat against the conference table, Catherine tilts her head very slowly, undoubtedly weighing the scales of her impending fury.

“You knew this was going to open?” she sneers.

“We didn’t know where it was going to happen,” Hamilton replies nonchalantly, “and it has never happened this quickly before. It usually takes about a year.”

“I’m sorry,” Miranda interjects, not an ounce of contrition in her tone, “but what is this ‘it’ you are referring to?”

Hamilton and Atkins share a calculating glance, and their countenance of commonplace falters, a pebble of greater knowledge rippling through their ordinary faces.

“…There is probably an older name for it,” Atkins sighs as he leans back and laces his fingers against his stomach, “in some ancient language we long forgot. So the Bonding Bureau makes due by referring to it as the MME.”

“The MME?” Koracick hums sardonically. “Sounds like a bad knock off the MM _A_. Pun intended.” Hamilton visibly suppresses an eye roll, but Miranda easily gives into the urge and glowers at him. The man has no filters, or, more likely, has them and chooses not to deploy them.

“The Mate Multiplier Effect,” Hamilton expands. “We don’t know precisely why, but where there is one mating, more follow. We think it has something to do with pack formation. Mated couples, in time, form a pack around themselves, and not to long after the pack is formed, the other pack members start mating off too. And as I said, it usually takes much longer than a handful of months.”

“Plus,” adds Atkins, “the pack is usually made from people within the original couple’s personal circle. But… given the intense nature of your line of work, and how much the professional and personal overlap here, a pack pressure cooker might have formed.”

“So,” Catherine murmurs cautiously, “you are so saying my son…and Dr. Qadri are…”

“Mates,” Hamilton fills in smoothly. “Yes.”

“But they have gone on only one date!” Catherine cries. “And it was a terrible date! I mean, catastrophically awful! How can they be mates!”

Another glance darts between the agents, and Miranda hates that she has no clue where the target is. Inwardly, she chuckles. This must be how her patients feel when she and a colleague look to another to silently debate how much information is appropriate to divulge. How to best phrase it to soften the blow.

“Drs. Kim and Schmitt,” Hamilton hedges, “they are not the norm when it comes to mating. Well, better said, they are perfectly normal for a flagship couple—the couple that initiates the pack formation—but flagship couples are the exception in terms of how mating typically occurs. Flagship couples usually don’t discover their mating bond until they well into an established relationship. It is much easier for them to adjust to the idea that they are with their best possible partner.”

“And flagship couples develop heighten instincts _after_ their bond sets into place,” Atkins continues when Hamilton pauses for a sip of coffee. “Their pack, however, develop their instincts _before_ and _during_ the bond setting in, and when the bond does set in, it happens almost—” He snaps his fingers. “—instantly.”

“They don’t have the luxury of already being in love,” Hamilton sums up, clasping her mug with both hands. “The whole ‘love-at-first-sight’ aspect of mating? That truly is a fairytale. Most mated couples have to put in the work to find out why the universe decided they belong together. Flagship couples usually already have that part figured out.”

“So Jackson and Dr. Qadri…” Catherine sounds out incredulously, deflating into her chair like a wilting flower curling in on itself. “…are a mated couple.”

“The second of several,” Miranda mutters. She watches the agents intently as she leans forward. Their ordinary faces give away nothing as she continues. “That’s why you called this meeting, isn’t it? To warn us that our hospital is about to become some ridiculous version of _Love Island_?”

“I’m afraid you are way past ‘about to,’” Atkins corrects. “You are there. It’s hard to say, though, how many mated couples there will be. It depends on the size of the pack. But you should know that mating bonds tend to make themselves known in very dramatic fashion, almost always during times of distress.”

“Like when Qadri was injured at the party,” Bailey realizes aloud. Hamilton nods minutely.

“Yes, exactly. She was in distress, so the bond compelled Dr. Avery to protect her. Luckily, that incident did not happen here, but given how much time most everyone close to Drs. Schmitt and Kim spend here—”

“We won’t be so lucky next time,” Miranda interrupts again. “Or the times after that.”

“That’s why we strongly recommend you build a formal space for denning and nesting,” advises Atkins. “You are going to need a place for staff to go when instinct starts to take over.” Koracick, slouched and unabashedly disinterested, suddenly perks up.

“You want us to build an official place in this hospital for boning?” he asks delightedly. He flashes an impish grin at a still shellshocked Catherine. “Oh, please let me be the one who tells Beckham.”

“The Bureau will subsidize the cost of the renovations,” Hamilton shares, lifting her mug back up to her lips. “And we have sample designs on hand you may want to take a look at.”

She then sips again at her beverage, her eyes meeting Atkins over the rim. Another ripple echoes through those very plain faces, and Miranda understands that they are “strongly recommending” in the same way she as a doctor strongly recommends something: _I_ strongly recommend _you start chemotherapy as soon as possible—or the cancer in your breasts will spread and eat you alive from the inside out._ _I_ strongly recommend _you stop drinking—or you’ll destroy what’s left of your liver and cease to function._

Do this or die. That is the choice Hamilton and Atkins have laid down on the table between them. They have laid out the roadmap for Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital’s survival, and, to them, it is an easy decision: Do this and live. Live.

But Miranda has been a doctor long enough know that patients too often don’t make the rational choice…the so-called right choice. Some choose their dignity. Some choose their demons. Some choose defeat. And as their doctor, Miranda must let them choose however they like, because it is their life…their death.

So Hamilton and Atkins will not discard those deceptively ordinary faces. They’ll stay respectfully behind them, passing judgment and contingency plans back and forth to one another with pointed, wordless glances as they wait for the choice to be made.

Vikram suspects his day is going entirely too well. It is approaching the late afternoon, and no one has sideswiped him yet with a passive aggressive dig. The nurses, who have been leery of leaving him alone with a patient for any length of time, have let him complete examinations without one of them hanging over his shoulder to doublecheck or question his work. An attending might have even complimented him this morning after he pointed out a patient’s elevated cardiac enzymes. And, to top all of it off, Koracick had happily left him alone to prep Blake Simms, Koracick’s personal resident, for surgery, which is exceedingly odd, because Koracick has barely let Vikram in Simms’ room all week. But today, the day of Simms’ crucial arm surgery, Koracick has entrusted Vikram to make sure that all is in order before Simms is sent down to the OR.

Yes, today is going too well, a suspicion that proves well-founded when Dahlia, her dark almond eyes wide and panicked, comes barreling into Simms’ room.

“I need to talk to you,” she tells him breathlessly without preamble. “Now.” Blinking, Vikram looks up from Simms’ bicep, around which he is in the middle of securing a blood pressure cuff. 

“He’s a little a busy right now,” Simms drawls. Bored, he is propped on pillows and, up until now, has been silently enduring Simms’ probing. “He’s making me pretty for surgery, the one that literally determines if my career makes it off life support.”

“I will be finished in a minute,” Vikram says. “Then we can go—”

“Dr. Avery and I…” she blurts out, gasping. “Dr. Avery and I are mates! Mates!” Tremblingly, she begins to pace back and forth like a caged cheetah that just wants to bolt at top speed but has nowhere to go. Vikram and Simms look to one another for a moment, sharing a dumbfounded expression, before returning their stares to her.

“Uh…congratulations?” Vikram tries, but this is apparently not the right response, because Dahlia’s pace only quickens. 

“How?” Simms poses as he strains to sit up more. Vikram immediately moves to steady him, but he bats Vikram’s hands away. “You two just started dating, according to the nurses anyway.”

“There is no dating!” Dahlia protests. “It was _one_ date. One not-so-great date that ended in me getting _this_.” She holds up her right arm, which is held in place at a ninety-degree angle by a thick blue cast. “But because Kim and Schmitt are mated, they are forming a pack, and Dr. Avery is in that pack, and the pack now has super instincts that lead them to also mate, and Dr. Avery’s instincts picked me!”

The air in her lungs depleted, Dahlia’s voice goes high and thin, and she stops suddenly and drops her hands to her knees.

“Avery is in Schmitt and Kim’s pack?” Simms repeats, giving no visible deference to Dahlia’s distress. “I didn’t think they were that close.” Dahlia laughs hollowly.

“That doesn’t matter apparently,” she wheezes. “They face matters of life and death on the regular together, and that is enough to ‘lay the groundwork of implicit trust’ or so says the Bonding Bureau! So he’s pack.”

Giving up on getting Simms’ blood pressure reading, Vikram slowly approaches Dahlia and extends a hand to give her back an awkward pat.

“Isn’t this a good thing?” he queries. “You wanted to be pack too, right? Well, now you are. And Dr. Avery is rich, good looking, accomplished. That makes for a pretty good catch—”

“We know nothing about each other!” Dahlia cries, jerking up ramrod straight. “We are at vastly different points in our careers. We don’t share the same religion—I don’t even know that he has a religion! But he has a kid! I’m not ready to be a mom, let alone someone’s stepmom! And his mom terrifies me, like, legit pee-my-pants terrifies me! And my parents…my father…Oh, God…”

She runs out of air again and starts to heave desperately. Unthinkingly, Vikram immediately grasps her by the shoulders.

“Dahlia, breathe,” he urges. “You need to breathe.” Tears well in her eyes as they lock onto his, but she manages a shuddering inhale and then an equally juddering exhale. “That’s it. That’s it. Just keep breathing. Just breathe—”

And then he is the one gasping for breath as he is yanked back and set flying thanks to a fist to the gut. He hits the hallway floor and skids into the base of the nurses’ station, the vertebrae of his spin screeching as they collide with hard plastic. His vision swims but clears in time for him to make out blue crocs rapidly, wrathfully marching toward him. Closer, closer, and—

Stilettos. Thin, tall gleaming black stilettos step between him and the crocs, and then a male caterwaul reverberates as the crocs stumble back.

Squeezing his eyes shut a moment, Vikram rips them open and gazes upward, catching a glimpse of crimson red nails shaking off drops of red blood.

“I advise you to get a hold of yourself, Dr. Avery,” Natalie Beckham drones, “and to attend to your mate. She seems distressed. If you come at Dr. Roy again, I can’t promise that I’ll nick only your cheek the second time around. I hear we omegas like to go for the eyes.”

Vikram blinks again, and this time finds piercingly artic blue eyes gazing down at him. _Yes_ , he thinks as those blue eyes draw closer, _today had been going_ too _well_. Supple fingers cup his chin, long nails gingerly grazing his skin—a touch that feels like more good fortune he doesn’t deserve.

Levi knows that Nico would sniff him out eventually. He had only hoped that it would take longer than twenty minutes it did, and he huddles into himself as Nico closes the door to the on-call room with a delicate “click.”

“You’re supposed to be in surgery,” Levi mutters as Nico eases down beside him on the lower bunk bed, bowing his head in order to avoid hitting it against the railing above. 

“It got pushed,” Nico explains, wrapping an arm around Levi’s shoulders and pulling him into his broad chest. Levi allows himself to melt into the embrace, and he sniffs at Nico’s scrub top, the alpha’s musk a balm on his raw nerves. 

“Avery is too riled up,” Nico goes on. “And Simms says he is not going to let anyone slice him open until, and, I quote, ‘the smell of murderous intent dissipates.’”

Well, thank God for small mercies. Levi admittedly had been concerned about the idea of Nico and Dr. Avery being in the small, enclosed space that is the OR with Koracick. The events of the engagement party are still too fresh, and all it would have taken is one of Koracick’s infamous quips for one of the alphas to redirect their scalpels to his tongue. 

“Besides,” his mate hums, “do you really think I could focus on surgery after Wilson tells me that you’re hold up in here?”

“I’m not ‘hold up,’” Levi disputes petulantly. “I’m resting, like you and everyone keeps telling me to.” Not a complete lie—he really did come in here to rest, just not from the physical fatigue of a progressing pregnancy. 

Nico’s chest rumbles with an indulging laugh.

“Levi…” An invitation. An assurance.

“If…,” Levi whispers, swallowing. “…If Dr. Avery and Beckham are somehow pack, then Jo…Taryn…Casey…even Dr. Lincoln…. All of them are too. So many lives just…overturned.”

Nico’s fingers begin to corral Levi’s loose curls behind his ear.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he says. “What is happening—it’s not a bad thing.”

“Dahlia had a panic attack!” cries Levi, moving to sit up. Loosening his embrace, Nico lets him but then gently guides him into his lap, and Levi straddles him, resting his weight on Nico’s lap.

“And Dr. Avery sucker punched Roy because Dahlia went to him for comfort,” he goes on, gluing his eyes to the caramel place where Nico’s collarbones meet. “Then Beckham almost poked Dr. Avery’s eyes out. And it’s just beginning. Any day now our friends are going to wake up and find their lives upended. What if Casey’s mate isn’t Jayla? Or Dr. Lincoln and Dr. Shepherd, what if they aren’t mates either? What if…what if everything—everyone—falls apart?”

“…Then they’ll be put back together,” Nico answers. “And better than they were built before. Because it is not a bad thing that is happening.”

Tilting his head down, Nico nudges Levi’s forehead up with his own until their eyes meet in the low light.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he, smiling, susurrates. “ _We_ are not a bad thing, and I am not sorry. I’ll never be sorry for finding you. For getting to be the man who gets to love you.”

Then, Nico is pressing his lips against Levi’s as his hands slip hotly underneath his scrubs and up his back. Levi arches into the touch and hopes his mate’s ardent confidence seeps into his own skin.


	14. Month Four, Part 4: Sixpence in Your Shoe

The arrangement is simple, composed of only two types of flowers. The bunch making up the center are crown shaped blooms of a deep, intense blue hue that Natalie can easily identify as cornflowers, but the large, feathery plumes of pearly pink framing in the perimeter are flora she is unfamiliar with, and she is mentally debating their possible names when Catherine waltzes to into her office. A neat stack of papers cradle in the crook of her elbow, Catherine gives the bouquet a deliberate onceover, her eyes pointedly lingering on the clear glass vase, and then redirects her gaze to Natalie.

“You hate stem cut flowers,” she says as she draws near Natalie’s desk. Smirking, Natalie crosses her legs and leans back into her chair.

“I don’t hate them,” she disputes. “I just don’t get the point of them as gifts. They last for a few days, and then they decay and fall apart, making a brown, disgusting mess. If you’re going to spend money on me, buy me something that has some longevity to it. Or food—I get sustenance and energy out of that.”

“Most people think flowers are romantic.”

“Most people are ridiculous.” 

Sighing, Catherine sits, balancing the stack of papers on her lap.

“Poor Dr. Roy,” she tuts, eyeing the arrangement again. “He sent such a lovely gift, only for it to go unappreciated.”

“It’s not _un_ appreciated,” Natalie snaps back, more bite in her tone than she intends. Catherine cocks an eyebrow, and Natalie can feel the ravenous curiosity rolling off her in tidal waves. Exhaling briskly, she drums her nails against her armrest and does her best to suppress the memory of viciously swiping them across Dr. Avery’s face. It had been instantaneous, only a hair of time passing between spotting Vikram crumpled on the ground and slapping Avery with a strength she hasn’t summoned since her college softball days.

So rarely has she been so out of control of herself. 

“You didn’t come here to talk about my distaste for freshly cut flowers,” Natalie sighs, drumming her nails again before lifting them to gesture at the stack of papers. “That looks suspiciously like the proposed contracts I gave to Annie this morning to review.”

“That’s because they are,” Catherine confirms. “Funny how Annie had them, because I distinctively remember giving them to _you_.”

“And I gave them to Annie,” Natalie repeats. “I delegated.”

“Aren’t these a little too important to delegate to an associate?”

“A senior associate who is extremely adept at contract law,” Natalie specifies, her brow furrowing. “She will make sure we get the best contractor at the best bid. Besides, we want to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

“How’s it a conflict of interest for you to go the over the proposals?” Catherine pushes.

“Because we both know that I will likely directly benefit from whatever den and nest space this hospital decides to build,” Natalie barks. “I don’t question who you appoint to Chief of Surgery or Chief of Chiefs. I trust that you have picked the right person for the job and for the right reasons. I’d appreciate the courtesy returned. After all, according to the Bonding Bureau, I am seen as pack because I protect the interests of the pack’s home base—this hospital. So please assume that if I delegate work to my very well-educated and highly capable staff, I do so with this hospital’s best interest in mind.”

Catherine purses her lips but looks from far cowed as she runs a palm over the stack of contract bids.

“Are you thinking about leaving, Natalie?” she asks suddenly. Natalie blinks.

“What?”

“This is how started with Frank, or do you not remember?” Catherine elaborates tersely. “He started giving you tasks he normally would’ve handled himself. And then, slowly but surely, he was out of the office more and more until it was a rare sight for him to be in the office. One day soon after that, he officially passed the torch to you. So, if you are planning your exit, I’d like to know.”

“Frank,” Natalie scoffs, “was fifteen years past the age most people retire.”

“And you,” Catherine replies, “are a newly mated woman.”

“What? You think I am going to quit to start a career of barefoot and pregnant?”

“Don’t put those revolting words in my mouth,” Catherine sneers, “and don’t act like this doesn’t change anything. Because we both know it changes everything.”

Drumming her nails once more, Natalie sighs and shifts her gaze to the bouquet. The cornflower blue is a shock of color in her mostly monochrome office—a beautiful, random rupture in an otherwise meticulously curated space.

“The last time I went into a real heat,” she murmurs with a sudden softness, “was almost ten years ago right after I finished taking the bar. I had spent months with my nose so far in books and practice tests that I lost all track of anything and everything else, including my own body. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late to take a suppressant. Luckily, I had people who cared about me and took care of me, but after…after I promised myself I’d never be caught unaware like that again, and since then I’ve become very good at predicting what happens next. But this…”

She lifts her hand palm up to cup the nearest cornflower crown.

“…I couldn’t have seen this coming in a million years,” she confesses, “and I have no idea what happens next. The universe has decided that my best possible partner is a man who, on paper, is someone I never would’ve considered. Ever. He’s younger than me, make less money than me, and probably isn’t as smart as me. On top of all that, he is an alpha I am fairly certain has been raised to believe that the world should carter to him because of his primary and secondary sex. I never would have looked at him of my own accord. And yet—”

With her thumb and forefinger, she grasps a petal of the flower and bends and twists it so that Catherine can seek that it isn’t as fragile as it appears.

“—He is the first and only man to bring me fabric flowers without being first told that I can’t stand to watch real ones rot.”

Somberly, she, retracting her hand, looks back at Catherine.

“No,” she says, “I don’t have plans to leave. I don’t have any plans, because I don’t know what happens next. What I do know is that Annie should be the one to go over those bids to make sure the review process is fair and impartial.”

A beat, and then Catherine, standing, nods.

“…I’ll drop these back off to Annie on my way out,” she announces. She turns to leave but pauses before lowering her eyes to bouquet’s feathery plumes. “Those are astilbe by the way. My aunt had them in her wedding arrangements. She picked them, she always said, because they symbolize patience and endurance. She might have been on to something, because she and my uncle were married for fifty years. So, maybe you should give Dr. Roy—and the universe—a little bit more credit.”

“Hey, Amelia, Maggie, have you seen Schmitt?” Teddy asks as she steps into the CT room. “I haven’t seen him since rounds, and I want him to join me for a heart reconstruction surgery that I had to push up.” 

Maggie and Amelia look to each other briefly before gazing over their shoulders at her. Smiling nervously, she hopes her agenda isn’t as obvious as it feels in the muscles of her face.

“Didn’t you get Bailey’s text?” Maggie asks. “Schmitt has the rest of the day off.”

“W-hat?” Teddy stutters. “He didn’t mention anything earlier today.”

“That’s because he didn’t know,” Amelia explains flatly, swiveling back around to watch the monitor. “Link and Wilson have planned surprise bachelor parties for him and Kim. They cleared it with Bailey last week.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense,” Teddy responds, “with the wedding being in only a couple days.” She tries to keep disappointment from dragging down the words and injects a booster shot of levity into her voice. “I bet it’s going to be beautiful. It’s an outdoor venue, though, so I’m not sure what to wear. It’s hard to find that right mix of farm and formal.”

“Well, lucky for me,” chuckles Amelia mirthlessly, “that’s not a dilemma I have to deal with anymore.”

“You’re…not going? But I thought you and Link were invited….” Shrugging, Amelia maneuvers the computer mouse around as a set of brain scans starts to emerge out of the darkness of the monitor screen.

“We were invited, and _Link_ still is. He is Kim’s mentor and therefore pack.” Clicking the mouse a couple times to zoom in on a probable mass in the scanned brain’s temporal lobe, Amelia says no more, and Teddy has the good manners and sense not to pry. Besides, she hears all that Amelia doesn’t voice. Link may be pack, but she is not, so her invitation, for whatever reason, can be and has been rescinded. And until her bond with Link is put to the mate test, Schmitt, Kim, and their pack will keep her at arm’s length, far from their inner circle, because that is just how packs are—aloof toward anyone who is not one of their own.

“…Anyway,” Maggie says overly cheerily, her smile too large and too toothy, “if you need an extra set of hands for your surgery, I’d be happy to assist.”

“Ah, no, thank you,” Teddy declines politely. “I just thought it would be a good teaching opportunity. That’s all.”

Except that is not all. Teddy needs as many teaching opportunities as she can get with Schmitt. How else can she earn his friendship? His trust? Right now, to him, she is just an attending, one of dozens who stand at the top of a pyramid of which he is at the bottom. To distinguish herself, she needs moments to show him she is a person that can be relied upon, despite the reputation that now proceeds her. She needs him to rely on her…to claim her as one of his.

Because Teddy has been cut adrift. Owen can’t move beyond the past, and Tom can’t move on fast enough. She has lost and has been lost. So there is no shame as she flays for a lifeline. No remorse as she seeks out Schmitt for self-obsessed reasons. She is tired of drowning in her second guesses, and if Schmitt is a raft in that lonesome sea, she will swim like hell for him and the certainty he—and his pack—can provide.

“Did I do something to piss you off?” Levi whines. “Whatever is, I’m sorry! I’m _sorry_!”

Rolling her eyes, Jo refuses to loosen her grip on his wrist and tugs him through the door of a large, circular, chrome-washed building.

“You’re acting like I’m planning to kill you,” she mutters, “instead of taking you to what will be the most amazing bachelor party ever.”

“Killing me would be more merciful,” Levi cries. “Why would you throw me a bachelor party? I can’t drink, and if I go home smelling like I’ve been in a hundred feet of a stripper, Nico will lock me in the house for the next century and then will destroy half of Seattle looking for said stripper!”

“I’m not stupid,” Jo huffs. “There will be no strippers. And as for Kim, Link’s got that covered. They are off doing something sweaty and alpha-y, and we’ll be doing something that’s actually _fun_.”

He still drags his feet, however, as they enter a lobby that is nearly all polished, gleaming white, save for the emerald stems of an orchid plant placed artfully on the corner of the reception desk, near which Helm, Parker, and Qadri are waiting. Spotting them, Helm smirks.

“He’s freaking out, isn’t he?”

“Of course he’s freaking out,” Jo groans. 

“Relax, Schmitt,” orders Helm as Levi fidgets and looks around like a hare sensing a tiger lurking in the thicket. “It’s a spa, not a torture room.”

“A…spa?” Levi, askance, repeats. Sighing, Jo pokes his shoulder.

“Yes, a spa, because I’ve seen tension rods more relaxed than you. A massage, a facial, some aromatherapy—whatever it takes to put some elasticity back in these muscles. At the end of this, you will be more chill, which makes us happy, and bendier, which will make Kim happy. We all win!”

“Really didn’t need that image,” Parker grumbles under his breath, and Helm snorts.

“Seconded.” Qadri, on the other hand, stays silent behind them, and her stare is faraway. Briefly, Jo questions the impulse that had led to her inviting the intern at the last minute. Jackson had been included in Kim’s formal farewell to singlehood—being held in, of all the stereotypical testosterone hotbeds, a paintball park—and it thus had felt only right to include his mate too. Yet, now Qadri looks like she has misplaced herself and does not have a clue where to start searching. 

But it is a thought Jo summarily dismisses, because today is not about Qadri.

“Is this the groom?” purrs a female alto as smooth as cool water. They all turn to find that a lithe, model-faced woman has materialized behind the white isle of a desk, and her light brown eyes are pinned eagerly to Levi, who, squeaking, attempts to hide behind Jo. But she claps him on the back and pushes him forward.

“Yep!” The receptionist smiles, her lipstick the seductive shade of ripened cherries.

“Congratulations, sir,” she says. “We’ll be sure to get you ready for your big day. Sean and Ari here will be your masseurs.” With an elegant hand, she waves toward two statuesque men, both dressed in loose, pajamas like uniforms. They are very handsome, deliciously sun-kissed skinned like caramel candies.

Levi blanches, and Jo almost feels a twinge of guilt for the glee that bubbles up in her gut. Almost.

“Jo!” he hisses.

“What?” she asks with faux innocence. “Like I said—no strippers. _They’re_ not the ones who will be taking their clothes off.”

Levi’s jaw drops in speechless protest, but Helm grabs him by the collar and starts pulling him along.

“Let’s go, Schmitt,” she snaps. “If it’s really an issue, I’m sure they have nice, harmless beta on staff, but we aren’t leaving until the slinky that is your anxiety uncoils.”

A makeshift parade forms, the masseurs leading the way, Helm dragging Levi like a balloon that won’t quite get off the ground, Parker sniggering after, and Qadri making for a reluctant caboose. 

They will have their afternoon of froth and fun, Jo is determined. They’ll gorge themselves on eye candy and actual candy. They soothe their muscles with warm yet harmless touches and indulge their senses with rich, luxurious scents. Eventually, even without the aid of alcohol, they will get a little bawdy and tease each with innuendos and more obvious jokes. 

Today will be frivolous, because, while today is about and for Levi, it marks a transition for them all. Today is the end of each’s single-person-hood.

Today onward, they are pack.


	15. Month Four, Part 5: Quickening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short but extra fluffy today.

Nico feels as every bit strange as he must look darkly clad and sweat and paint splattered, casting a long, looming shadow onto a space still so white and so clean despite being blurred on the fringes of his tunnel vision. But the jabs of self-consciousness are blunted blows. He does not care about what he looks like, only about what—who—he seeks and scents but does not see.

“You had one job, Lincoln! _One_!”

Wilson’s figure is crystal clear against the backdrop of stark white, and Nico is lucid enough to note that she is dressed oddly, a thick, terry cloth robe concealing her curves, save for her waist, where a matching belt has been squinched and tied. There is something odd about her face too, and, blinking slowly, he registers something gray and clay-like has been smeared across it, covering her expanse of skin except her eyes and mouth, which stand out like a trinity of pale carters on an otherwise smooth moon.

“One. Job!” she repeats angrily. “Sate the beast with games of dominance and a copious amount of steak!” 

Link, flushed up to his ears, grits his teeth and leans into her personal space until they are almost nose to nose.

“My job,” he growls, “would’ve been a lot easier if you had given me a heads up about what you had planned.”

“I told you I was taking Levi somewhere to relax.”

“You did,” Link agrees with a predator’s grin. “You also refused to give me details. Guess what? Overly possessive alphas don’t like vague answers when they ask where their mates are. It makes them testy.”

Testy is the wrong word. Panicked. That is what Nico had become when Link couldn’t give a straightforward response about Levi’s whereabouts. Panicked—desperate—to the point that the paintball gun in his hands was a grievously inadequate instrument to convey the frantic instinct surging within him. It hadn’t helped that Jackson’s temperament had synchronized with his own, and they had stroked the strings of each other’ ire, encouraging the flames of their worst fears.

Piper’s subsequent attempt to douse the fire had been the thing to shred the last straw of his sanity. The flummoxed expression that had dropped onto his favorite cousin’s usual composed face like a grenade when she had received a text from Helm in response to her query had cemented his terror. The actual answer had ignited a feral hurricane in his blood.

So here he stands, a dark tempest raging over a sea of white and yearning for sight of the shoreline.

“A spa, Jo?” Link continues, waving dramatically at the surrounding walls. “ _This_ spa? A spa known for its extremely _attractive_ and extremely _attentive_ staff?”

A rumble, low and ground splitting, erupts from the earth of Nico’s chest. Link and Wilson whip their heads toward him, and their eyes are wide and wary. Piper then appears, statuesque and stunning in fitted black. 

“Down, boy,” she urges. “Wait it out for about twenty seconds. Please.” She then sashays to the desk and begins speaking to a person that Nico can’t distinguish from the white walls. They are just an impressionistic sketch of a human, a disembodied voice distant and inconsequential.

“You have a couple’s package, I am sure,” Piper says diplomatically. “Let’s just upgrade to that.”

“I—” is the hesitant reply. “I would need to clear that with the individual paying for the party—”

“My aunt and uncle,” Piper supplies. “Call them if you must, but I assure you, they would much rather pay for an upgraded package than property damage. Because, trust me, the longer you keep these gentlemen away from their partners, the more things they are going to break.”

“I-I see. Just a moment, then, while I—”

No. No more moments. It’s already been one too many. So Nico gives his feet free-range, and they are off, navigating wide, white corridors by smell, tracing the trail of a headily sweet, woody scent as familiar and as necessary to him as the very air he breathes.

Not soon enough, he enters another white room, and there, in its very center, is Levi, face down on a padded table, his naked back exposed to foreign hands.

Another rumble, one that reverberates up his throat and charges off his tongue. The foreign hands flutter off the sacred skin like skittish butterflies, and Levi is jerking up, balancing his weight on his forearms. 

Their eyes meet, and Levi’s body shudders with a relieved exhale.

“ _Nico_.”

Instantly, Nico is across the room and pulling his mate up into his arms. His hands slide against oil slicked muscles, so he squeezes a little harder, pressing Levi into him until every nerve is assured that they are together. That they are one.

Taryn is alone in the sauna, the steam and heat coxing sweat from her skin, when the door eases open and a pair of beautiful, bare feet pad in.

If Taryn thought Piper Kim was gorgeous dressed to the nines under party lights, then she does not know an appropriate adjective to describe the way she looks make-up free and wrapped up only in a towel. 

What word supersedes “gorgeous”? Dazzling? Resplendent? 

“The masseuses still alive?” Taryn asks over a swallow. Sitting down beside her, Piper tilts her head back until its crown touches the wood paneling of the sauna.

“As far as I know,” Piper hums, letting her eyelids droop shut. “They hightailed once they saw Nico coming, and we’ve upgraded to the couple’s package, so everyone should live to see tomorrow.”

“Couple’s package?” Taryn repeats. Her heart pumps harder, and she shifts, now acutely aware of every inch of her sweat sheened body. “Is that why you’re here? …In here…with me?”

Slowly, Piper’s eyes open, and hooded doe brown stares hotly back at her.

“Do _you_ want that to be why?”

Taryn answers by sliding her leg until their thighs touch, and when Piper does not move away, Taryn rests a hand on the other beta’s firm flesh, glides her fingers up to the hem of the white towel, and then, after the briefest of pauses, continues onward.

Her fingertips soaking in a bowl of warm water, Dahlia is silent as Jackson fills the vacant seat directly across from her. The manicurist had stepped away minutes earlier to fetch lotions and scrubs while Dahlia’s cuticles were to soften, and she is only passingly surprised that it is Jackson who takes their place.

These days, he never seems far from her, even when she is completely alone.

His green-hazel orbs are warm and bright like liquified garnets as they flick up from her hands to her face.

“I…” he says quietly, his voice rough with uncertainty, “I want to try, Dahlia. We don’t have to rush anything. We can take our time…get to know each other. But I want to try. So, will you go with me to the wedding on Saturday? As my date?”

This is not what Dahlia had in mind when she had wished to belong. She had a much different idea of what would it mean to be pack. And she can’t see how this won’t fail. How she won’t end up like the countless interns before her had loved and reached far above their station—discarded, forgotten, humiliated.

But fate is supposedly on her side this time, and if myth and fairytale are to be believed, she will come out better on the other side of this.

Happier.

So, she nods and does not flinch when Jackson slips his fingers into the water to mingle with hers.

The weather has blessed them today, showering sunlight and blue sky down like a deluge. Still, Levi’s stomach twists, excitement and anticipation mixing nauseatingly in his stomach. For the seventh time, he checks the buttons of his tux, a gentle, beachy blue-gray linen, before fiddling with the lavender spring, eucalyptus, and rose of his boutonniere.

“Stop that, dear,” his mother chides as she enters the dressing room. She shoos his hands away and nimbly secures the boutonniere back into place. She then moves on to his blush coral tie, testing the knot and smoothing the tail.

“…You look wonderful,” she murmurs thickly. “So handsome. Nico is one very lucky man. …And I am one very lucky woman. Having such a caring, loving, genuinely kind man for a son—I am a very lucky woman indeed.”

“Mom,” he replies, Adam’s apple bobbing on a rising tide. His mom plasters on a toothless smile and urgently shakes her head. 

“No, no,” she gently reprimands. “No tears, not yet, or I am going to be a blubbery mess walking you down that aisle.”

Chuckling back a happy sob, he nods in understanding and takes her proffered arm. Together, they walk out of the dressing tent and into the abundance of sun, heavily perfumed by the rows and rows of lavender that roll past on either side of them as she guides him a grassy line. Ahead, guests rise from their wicker chairs as violins croon, and friends and family smile broadly as they step closer and closer to a trellis of voluptuous wisteria. And there, beneath their luxurious violet purple blooms, is Nico, devastatingly striking in a tuxedo of navy blue.

Levi’s stomach leaps again when his mother brushes her lips against his cheek and then, tears now spilling over, places his hand into Nico’s outstretched one. Mother and imminent son-in-law share a mutual, respectful smile, and then she is gone, stepping back to her front row seat.

Nico’s deep brown eyes embrace him and hold onto him fiercely.

Levi’s stomach quivers, and he gasps a breathy, tear-laced inhale.

“You okay?” Nico whispers, stepping closer. Inhaling again, Levi gingerly pulls their clasped hands to his abdomen and presses Nico’s palm flat against the budding bulge.

Another flutter, and Nico gasps out a light, delighted laugh. Grinning through pooling tears, Levi hums his reply.

“I’m perfect.”


	16. Month Five, Part 1: Weight

Nico is riding the high of his wedding long before and long after the flight to San Diego. The ceremony and the reception after had gone miraculously flawlessly. His mother, of course, had flitted around, barking orders at the caterer, the venue director, the florist, the wedding planner, the DJ, and pretty much anyone who benefited monetarily from the nuptials, but eventually his father had managed to get her to sit down and drink a glass of champagne, which had soon turn into two and then three, and well, discovering that his mother is a deliriously happy, red-faced drunk is the second-best wedding gift he received. 

Undoubtedly, though, the first is the feel of his baby kicking from within his mate, and it is a sensation he wants to experience again and again. But right now that is proving difficult, because Levi is refusing to remove his sweatshirt, despite the fact it is a warm seventy-nine degrees, the sand of La Jolla Cove Beach toasty between their toes.

“Come on, babe,” Nico begs. “Take that thing off. You have to be burning up!”

“I’m fine,” Levi mumbles. Simultaneously, he lifts a hand to the back of his neck and uses a sleeve to wipe the skin there

“Levi,” Nico says, gently grasping his husband’s elbow. “You could overheat and get dehydrated if you leave that on, and I know you know that. So what’s really going on?”

Shifting his feet, Levi shoves his hands into the large pocket of his sweatshirt as his gaze floats down.

“…When I was packing,” he begins mutedly, “I noted that a lot of my clothes were either really tight or just didn’t fit, and I realized that I’ve started to put on weight, like actual noticeable pounds.”

Nico is already aware that Levi is starting to show—he had spent their wedding night lavishing the budding baby bump with ardent caresses and light, biting kisses. Admittedly, though, it hadn’t occurred to him in that moment that Levi would be in imminent need of paternity clothes. A quick run to a local department store can remedy that problem, but Nico suspects it’s not about the clothes. Not really. So, he waits as Levi rolls his next words around the inside of his mouth.

“I am only going to get bigger,” Levi blurts out, his lower lip wobbling. He inhales sharply and then hiccups a torrent of words. “I am a doctor—I know pregnant people are growing a whole human being inside of them, so of course they get big. Getting big is good. It means the baby is growing the way they should. But big, bulging bellies don’t exactly meet the conventional standards of attractiveness, and I already wasn’t meeting those before I became pregnant—”

“Levi,” Nico sighs softly, but Levi carries on, hunching his shoulders and burrowing his hands and forearms deeper into the sweatshirt pocket.

“I am not saying I’m a troll, because I’m not, but I’m not going to make the cover of _GQ Magazine_. I’m a nerd, like a prototypical nerd, and on my best days, I am cute. Compact and cute. But soon…I won’t even be that. I’ll be big and bulging and nerdy, and you’ll be more out of my league then you already are—Nico! What, gah!”

Gingerly, but swiftly, Nico pulls Levi’s arms out of the sweatshirt pocket and then immediately tugs the sweatshirt up and off before tossing the heavy gray cotton down to the fine sand.

“Levi,” he chuckles, deliberately laying his palms directly over the thin layer of fat beginning to form around his mate’s hips, “when I first saw you—really looked at you and _saw_ you—all I could see were your eyes. These big, beautiful brown eyes watching me so intently that I had to do double take. And that’s when I knew—I would do anything to get know the man with those eyes—” His hands levitate from Levi’s hips to his cheeks, the tips of his thumbs coming just beneath where the cheekbone curves into the precious pits that cradle wide, glistening hazel

“—these eyes. Because these eyes? These eyes told me how curious and passionate kind and intelligent you are. How loving you are. That’s what I fell for—who I fell for. Who I fell for and keeping falling for. Every time I look into these eyes, I fall for you all over again. So as long as you are you, then I will keep falling. And to hell with whatever everyone else thinks— _I’m_ the minor leaguer trying to get called up.”

Snorting lightly, Levi’s dazzlingly hazel glances up at the California blue in an adorable attempt to stem his tears, but he blinks, and they spill over his tiny lower lashes.

“…Cheesy,” he murmurs. “You are so cheesy. In fact, I’m pretty sure my cravings for anything cheesy and melty is _your_ fault.”

Nico laughs as he thumbs at the hot, watery ribbons unraveling down Levi’s face and gently brushes them away.

“I promise,” he teases, “I will make sure you get as much cheesy and _melty_ as you desire.” Nico’s tongue leisurely licks and curls around “melty,” and Levi’s eyelids droop halfway over his hazel irises.

“Pretty sure a craving is coming on now.”

“Yeah?” asks Nico huskily. Smiling through the last of his tears, Levi nods.

“Yeah.”

Nico returns the grin as he dives down to press their lips together. Soon after, they find an alcove further down on the beach, and Levi lets Nico touch his stomach as much as his alpha wishes—his stomach and everywhere else too.

The sweatshirt, meanwhile, is lost to sand and brine.

It’s a marvel how such a thing as weightless as a single sheet of paper can feel like a hundred-ton weight. Miranda had been expecting it. There was no doubt in her mind that it would be coming for her. Still, the sheer force of its arrival nearly knocks her off her feet when the process server hands it to her in the PIT of all places.

“You’ve been served,” the young man drones like rote memorization before he walks away, disappearing out the automated doors.

“Got you too, aye Chief?”

Shaking herself back to the conscious present, Miranda discovers Hayes standing beside her, an identical single leaflet tucked under one of the biceps of his folded arms.

“The gowl got me in the cafeteria,” he laments, and Miranda can feel a tension headache revving its engine in her temples as her brow furrows.

“A gowl?” she repeats, and Hayes’ pale lips quirk up in a poorly concealed smirk.

“An idiot,” he explains, his Irish lilt a little more prominent. “It can also mean something else, but it’s not very safe for work.”

“Then don’t say it at work.” This bone-dry admonishment does not come from Miranda’s mouth, though she did have something locked and loaded at the back of her throat. No, it comes out dressed in Beckham’s trademark velvety scorn, and both doctors turn to find her battle ready in a power suit of strawberry pink. Only the Hydra can make a spring palette look like unbreakable armor.

“You surgeons really have no concept of how much paperwork I have to do when someone complains about your lack of professionalism, do you?” Beckham complains. “If I wanted to scold adolescents about their raging hormones, I would’ve become a high school educator instead of spending so much time and money on a law degree.”

“Do you have built-in radar?” Miranda cries. Dear Lord, it hadn’t even been five minutes, and legal is already here, lying in wait to ensure she falls in line. …That she succumbs to the unbearable weight in her hands.

“What are you talking about?” Beckham, clearly exasperated, demands. Gritting her teeth, Miranda thrusts the sheet at her, and Natalie takes it like she is picking up a mouse by its tail. She gives it a cursory onceover and shrugs.

“The summons for Grey’s medical license hearing,” she identifies unnecessarily. With a tilt of her fingers, she all but flicks it back at Miranda as if she were shooing off a gnat. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised.”

“No,” hisses Miranda, “but did you really have to come at me the minute I got it?” Beckham’s blizzard blue eyes narrow.

“As much as it would make my job so much easier,” she says frigidly, “I don’t have a crystal ball that alerts me to every legal grenade that is lobbed at this hospital. I didn’t know you would be served today, and I’m not here for _you_.”

“Then who are you here for?” Miranda demands. She jabs a thumb in the direction of her Chief of Pediatrics. “Dr. Hayes?” 

Beckham’s eyes narrow further until they take on a reptilian slant, and Miranda’s blood chills as she grasps that she might have gone too far in her displaced anger. It’s not Beckham’s fault that Miranda must now carry the unwieldly weight of Meredith’s fate. It’s not even her own fault. It is solely Meredith’s. Righteous, brilliant, foolhardy Meredith. Her favorite student. Her worst and most worthwhile headache. 

She had helped nurture Meredith’s career—Meredith as a surgeon—and now she is being tasked with destroying what she helped grow.

But that is not Beckham’s fault, and the attorney would be well justified in spewing venom in retaliation. Yet, just when Miranda is sure that she is about to strike, Beckham spins in her ivory heels and marches over to nearby bed six and yanks back the privacy curtain. The bed’s occupant, a tall, long limbed man cradling his left wrist against his chest, gapes at her.

“W-who are you?” the man sputters indignantly. “You don’t look like a doctor—”

“Let’s not,” Beckham interrupts with deadly calm, “play pretend. I haven’t eaten yet today, and for every minute your bullshit keeps me from my lunch, I will have my associates add another zero in damages to the harassment suit they are drafting right now against your boss.”

The man pales whiter than the sheets beneath him, but, swallowing, he begins to shake his head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, ma’am—”

“You know who I am,” Beckham cuts in like a swing of an axe, “and I know who you are, Mr. Newman. The Bonding Bureau gave me a very well researched dossier on you when they warned me that you have been sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

The man’s light brown eyes bounce around wildly, even briefly meeting Miranda’s inquisitive gaze, but they ultimately drop pleadingly to the fingers clutching his left wrist.

“I-I came here because I tripped and injured my—”

“—wrist.” Beckham sneers, canines on display. Miranda knows she is an omega, but it is that very smile of Beckham’s—carnivorous and eager for the kill—that keeps both betas like herself and alphas like Hayes on edge. “Yes, the resident who examined you told me. He also told me that your wrist is perfectly fine, which he tried to tell you, except you kept asking a lot of questions about former personnel and the circumstances surrounding their dismissal. He thought it was odd, given that information was not relevant to the treatment you obviously do not need.”

“I—”

“I suggest, Mr. Newman, that you leave now, because the next words out of my mouth will be to call for security.”

That proves to be the lethal strike, and the man, Newman, scrambles off the bed and is gone before Beckham turns fully back around.

“What just happened” Miranda barks. “And who gave you the authority to kick patients out of my ER?”

“Catherine,” Beckham answers easily. “And that was no patient. That was a rat doing a very bad impression of a mole.”

Oh, yes, there’s that headache, knocking loudly at the front door of Miranda’s brain.

“Explain.”

“He works for Griffin Ford,” Beckham supplies as she drags a hand over her face, “and Ford’s company is developing a compatibility app he promises will ‘revolutionize’ dating and pairing. It seems, however, he can’t make good on that promise without Drs. Kim and Schmitt. His lackey, Stance Newman, has been making the rounds. He already ambushed Andrew Deluca.”

“Shameless bastards,” Hayes growls.

“Exactly,” agrees Beckham. “Fortunately, the male Deluca had the sense to report him to the Bonding Bureau, who gave us the heads up.”

“Then that’s the end of it, right?” Miranda inquires, temple vein throbbing and the summons in her hands growing heavier by the second. “There’s no way Ford could get away with such a brazen intrusion.”

“You would think,” Beckham refutes, “but he’s a cockroach. He’s not going to go away that easily. No, he’ll let Newman take the fall for today’s stunt and claim he had no idea what Newman was up to. He’ll hang him out to dry like last week’s soiled panties. Today, we were lucky—the resident Newman tried to pump was Dr. Parker, and Dr. Parker knew to keep his mouth shut and get me. But if Ford sends someone else, someone a little more discrete, we might not be so lucky.”

Excluding the disgusting imagery, Miranda absorbs the new fifty-pound dumbbell that Beckham has just dropped on her. Now, in addition to being press-ganged into the firing squad being assembled against Meredith, now she has to keep a vigil eye out for spies. _Spies._

Uncertain of what she will say and knowing only that she wants to rage, to scream, she opens her mouth only to clamp it shut when Roy appears in the periphery of her vision, where he hovers with an anxious face.

“Do you need something, Roy?” she spits. Roy looks nervously from her to Beckham, whose demeanor almost seems to soften, the strawberry pink of her suit no longer colorful armor but now just…pretty.

“He and I are catching lunch,” Beckham answers for him. “If any more pests show up while I am gone, call Neal down. He’ll squash them for you.” 

Then, she hooks Roy by the elbow and pulls him after her—extra pounds she handles with grace and ease. Miranda despises the pang of envy that fires through her chest, and, quickly, she stuffs the summons into her inside coat pocket.

For the rest of the day, she does her very best to ignore the pressure that single piece of paper inflicts upon her heart.


	17. Month Five, Part 2: Bloating

Truthfully, Dyugen has never taken much interest in any one particular resident of hers. She always puts her best teaching foot forward, of course—she would be doing the medical profession a severe disservice if she didn’t—but attachment has never been part of the equation. They cycle in and out too frequently, and she is their supervisor, so she is wary of crossing that ethical line that divides professional and personal lives. The closest she has ever gotten is an approximation of friendship, certainly never romance or sex. She doesn’t get how such messy entanglements have become commonplace, nay, expected at Grey Sloan, and she is not about to buy into that part of her new employer’s culture.

But she must admit there is something about Schmitt that teases out her curiosity. He is not like the usual baby piranhas, also known as interns, that lurk in the hospital hallways. He lacks that young, entitled bloodlust that Dyugen has never liked but tolerated since there was no other option…until now. Until Schmitt. Instead, he has delighted altruism, empathy so deep it might end up proving a detriment, so Dyugen is curious. What kind of surgeon will someone like Schmitt become?

It is this curiosity that has her taking the time to help Schmitt make up a skills lab lesson. While he sits on a stool, a hand on the slight swell of his stomach, she, still half an inch shorter despite standing, demonstrates how to place mesh when reconstructing an abdominal wall.

“Now, you need to be very careful,” she is saying, “if you don’t align this just right, the mesh can fail, and if that happens, the patient is in for gastrointestinal hell, the nine circles of which are burning, constipation, nausea, fatigue, bloating—”

“Dr. Pham, a word.” Altman’s tone is light, airy almost, but simultaneously does not bother with the pretense of requesting. She is _demanding_ , and she does not falter as Dyugen looks briefly to Schmitt, then to her hands where they hover in mid-demonstration, and finally back to Altman standing arms crossed in the doorway.

“…sure,” she replies at last. She puts down the mesh delicately to the side and mildly touches Schmitt’s shoulder. 

“Why don’t you review the steps,” she instructs, “and then once Dr. Altman and I are finished speaking, you can practice placing the mesh yourself. Okay?”

Schmitt grins and nods eagerly, and Dyugen good-naturedly pats him on the back before crossing the lab and joining Altman outside in the hallway.

“So,” she drawls, “who’s dying?”

“Excuse me?” Altman snaps, and a grimace weighs down Dyugen’s lips.

“I assume that someone is dying,” she says, “because why else would you so urgently interrupt me teaching an intern?”

“How about because that intern is supposed to be on my service?” Altman sneers. “You can’t just go around snatching residents when you feel like it!”

“I didn’t ‘snatch’ anyone!” Dyugen cries. “Schmitt is on _cardio’s_ service, and I spoke with your co-chief, Dr. Pierce, and she gave the green light. She only asked that I do it at a time that didn’t conflict with rounds or the surgery you want him scrubbing in on later. So here I am, during what should be my very precious lunch hour, making sure that he keeps up with the rest of his class as much as he can. He is going to have to play enough catch-up as it when he comes back from paternity leave. The more he knows ahead of time, the better.”

Dyugen is well aware that she has fallen into what her brother calls her “sprinter speech”—that mile per minute talk that leaves people spinning in the dust—but she has just been called a thief, an accusation she wouldn’t let stand even if she weren’t hangry. 

Altman’s face falters fleetingly but quickly recovers its righteous outrage.

“Schmitt is working with _me,_ so you should have asked _me,_ ” she admonishes, “not Pierce.” Dyugen’s eyebrows pop up, and if Altman knew her at all, then the cardio surgeon would’ve known that gesture is a sign to run. Far. Away.

“Well, _Dr._ Altman,” she gears up, “I was going to ask _you_ first, but when I found you, you and Dr. Hunt were having a very loud, very heated, and very private conservation, and I didn’t think you wanted an audience to that, despite its regular occurrence in the workplace. See, I respect personal boundaries and value professional courtesy, so while those things do not seem that important to _you_ , I decided to give you personal space and asked your department co-chief, who asked me to respect the cardio department’s schedule, which I have skipped a meal to do. So if you have a problem with me taking an intern for an hour to help further his surgical education, I suggest you go speak with Dr. Pierce, or better yet, to our superior who asked me to help Schmitt make up the lesson in the first place.”

Altman curls her long fingers into fists and places them on her hips like she is about to reach for a gun holster.

“And who would that superior be?”

“That would be _me_.”

Dyugen is very proud of the fact of she manages not to snort when Altman practically jumps back as Dr. Webber steps between them. Oh, she will laugh, just later in the privacy of her car during the drive home. For now, she simply tongues her cheek while Dr. Webber clasps his hands behind his back.

“R-richard!” Altman sputters. “I don’t know you were here.”

“First day back,” he explains patiently. “And the first thing I want to get in order is the residency program. To do that, I need everyone in each class to be at the same point. So when I heard Schmitt was away on his honeymoon and had missed last week’s skills lab, I asked Dr. Pham to help him make it up. She graciously agreed. They will be finished in plenty of time for your myotomy, at least, they will if Dr. Pham is able to resume the lesson.”

“Of-of course,” Altman squeaks before cranking out a smile that cracks on its edges. “Please send Schmitt my way when you’re finished, Dr. Pham.”

“That was always the plan,” Dyugen replies flatly. Altman doesn’t linger and instead, swiftly turning, makes herself scarce.

“I haven’t seen Teddy take an interest in a resident like that,” Dr. Webber muses, “since Cristina Yang.”

“The cardiothoracic surgeon,” Dyugen notes aloud. “I didn’t realize she had trained under Dr. Altman.”

“Oh it was years ago now. Yang was maybe in her third or fourth year of residency when Teddy came on board, and by that time Yang was firmly on the cardio track and clearly had a talent for it. Teddy, in time, enjoyed nurturing that talent. Perhaps she sees the same promise in Schmitt.”

“Schmitt is a first year,” points out Dyugen, “and like most first years, he’s just learning to walk. He’s got a lot of growing to do, and he needs to try on different kinds of shoes to see what fits him best. Isn’t that why we have them rotate on various services? They play dress up with Plastics one day and then with Ortho the next just so they can figure out that they look hotter in Neuro. Not my experience, mind you—I looked terrible in Neuro, like, Mom-jeans-terrible.”

Dr. Webber lets out a deep, rumbling laugh.

“I see why they called you the ‘Straightshooter’ back in the Midwest. You call it like it is.”

“I don’t see the point in pretending something isn’t what it is. That is a tremendous waste of time and energy.”

“Well, tell me,” Dr. Webber requests, his warm eyes crinkling at their corners, “do you see a general surgeon in Schmitt?”

She sees something, Dyugen considers confessing, something that she can’t yet name. Something she does not want to name or pigeonhole. Whatever it is needs to be allowed to grow naturally without undue influence, so Dyugen is going to let it be—let Schmitt be—providing only a view of a possible route he may one day take. 

So, she simply grins, shrugs, and walks back into the skills lab.

“Okay,” she announces, clapping her hands, “show me what you got, Schmitt.”

Link likes the pace of the ER—the ebb and the flow, the rush he can ride like wave. That is not to say he enjoys seeing people in pain, because he doesn’t, but there is distraction to be found in others’ suffering. You get so wrapped up in treating it, healing it, you lose sight of your own pain. At the very least, his private agony seems so much smaller when stacked against broken bone, and for a fistful of hours, he can ignore the pulse at the back of his brain, that swollen and bloated nerve that screeches constantly like a siren. 

When a pairing breaks apart, it is usually a death as silent as frost melting away in morning sunlight. It does not come as a surprise to either party, who part ways with a sigh and a nod, and that is that.

But some pairings… Some pairings take Dylan Thomas’ advice and rage and rage until there is nothing left to save. 

If he and Amelia end, it figures they go by fire, not ice. Ice would be too easy. Too painless. 

So, he focuses on the compound fracture in front of him, on the way the jagged end of a femur protrudes out of the creamy thigh of a leggy, redheaded model. A tender twenty, the girl wails hysterically, her small fists clutching desperately at hospital bedsheets.

“Paige!” she shouts. “ _Paige_!”

“Jenna, calm down please,” Helm attempts to soothe as she simultaneously begins hooking up an IV line. “Your friend is okay. She just has a sprained ankle. We’ll wrap it up, and she’ll be on her way. So let us focus on you, okay?”

Instead of relief, though, tomato-red rage floods Jenna’s cheeks, and she gulps out hyena yelps, her bleach white teeth on full display. 

“Yeah, she and Paige aren’t friends.”

The even, slightly slurred statement comes from behind Link, and he glances over his shoulder in time to witness an EMS roll in a new patient. Immediately, his eyes shoot like a magnet to the orange scissors handles sticking out of the smooth expanse of her cinnamon brown stomach. 

“Oh my God!” Helm cries. “Jayla? What the hell happened? Does Casey know?”

“Turns out when they say, ‘don’t say run with scissors,’” Jayla replies, “they have a point.” She snorts and then winces regretfully. “Note to self—laughing is not a good idea when you have scissor blades in your gut.”

“Paige. That. Bitch!” Jenna hollers. “When I’m done with her, the only way she’s walking the runaway is in a full body cast!”

“Paige tripped her,” Jayla clarifies with a dopey grin. “Jenna was picked to wear the finale piece—this amazing tulle ballgown with a fifteen-foot train. Well, that train? Paige stepped on it, Jenna fell, and then models started falling like dominoes. And little ol’ me, running with these stupid scissors to trim some stupid fringe got caught up in the train wreck.”

“Jayla? _Jayla_!”

Link’s ears ring as Parker’s voice echoes through the pit, and he barely steps out of the way as the intern comes barreling past, Jackson and Nico hot on his heels.

“Hi baby!” Jayla coos. Her brown eyes are growing increasingly cloudy with painkiller fog, and her smile widens dreamily as Parker’s dilated pupils glue themselves to the bright, glaring orange.

“Move Parker,” Hunt, approaching, barks as he pulls on powder blue gloves. “I need to get in there—hey!” Hunt jerks back, narrowly avoiding Parker’s flying fist. 

“Don’t touch her!” Parker growls.

“Well, that mystery’s solved,” Helm mutters. Link, sharing a glance with Nico and Jackson, doesn’t need her to elaborate. They have all been wondering if Jayla would prove more than just Parker’s pair, and now they have their answer.

Another ache at the back of his skull has Link squeezing his eyes tightly shut for a moment. The test will come, the pain promises. The test will come, and he and Amelia’s fate will be forged in the fire. They either will fuse together forever or fall part like a body burnt at the stake. 

But not today. He does not have to face the flames today.

So, he refocuses on the twist of Parker’s enraged glower as Nico and Jackson team up to pull him away from his mate’s gurney to give Hunt space to work, and that pain—the pain of two halves of a greater whole being forced apart—is greater than any anguish Link has ever known. 

“So feralization among alphas in the same pack is more contagious than chickenpox in a kindergarten class,” Maggie discloses as she sinks onto the couch and folds her legs beneath her, the loose, black material of her pajama pants pooling around her crossed ankles. In her right, upturned palm, she cradles a large glass of red wine, a triplet to the ones Amelia and Meredith hold in their own.

“For a minute, it looked like Kim and Jackson had Parker under control,” Maggie continues, “but then one of the other models went ballistic—”

“Can’t blame the girl,” Amelia interrupts. Her blue eyes are half-lidded, and if Meredith hadn’t poured grape juice into Amelia’s glass herself, she would have suspected the neurosurgeon had fallen victim to old vices. “Her arm was utterly crushed during the model melee, and with it, her supermodel dreams.”

Having taken advantage of Amelia’s interruption to sip at her wine, Maggie quickly swallows and gives a punctuated nod in agreement. 

“Some mid-year mentioned the word ‘amputate,’” she goes on, “and the poor girl lost it and started flaying her one good arm all over the place. She smacked Qadri right in the nose. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t been wearing this humongous ring.”

“Oh no,” Meredith murmurs lowly. Her exclamation lacks any real power or passion, but Maggie doesn’t seem to notice as she gestures to the general vicinity of her nose and chin.

“It was the granddaddy of all nosebleeds. Jackson sees, and a switch flipped. It took Hunt, Link, and three other guys to hold him back from ripping both of the model’s arms off. Meanwhile, Kim is barely holding onto Parker. The grouping instinct kicks in for Helm, and she starts rounding up the rest of the pack. She pulls Schmitt out of Altman’s OR, pissing off Altman, and him walking into the pit was the pure definition of fuel on the fire. When Kim realized he was within ten feet of the chaos, he let go of Parker and practically threw Schmitt over his shoulder to get him out of there. Thank God for JO. When she showed up, she dove right in. She told Helm to keep Roy and Beckham far away, because no one needed a fourth feral alpha added to the mix. Then, she got Jackson to focus on treating Qadri’s nose, _and_ she got Parker to calm down by promising to do his mate’s surgery herself. The whole thing was just wild!”

“Well they are pack,” Amelia mutters darkly. “Wild comes with the territory.”

“Okay, what’s with you?” Meredith asks. She can no longer stand the brooding clouds that have followed her sister home. Meredith has more than enough darkness for the three of them. She is overstuffed with it, the self-pity and loathing. It occupies every inch and crevice of her, filling the empty spaces until they overflow and swell.

She is bloated with dark and twisty and angry. She doesn’t need Amelia adding to the toxic mix.

“…She’s worried about how Link reacted,” Maggie explains reluctantly, shooing away the sloth-like silence that has stalled between them.

“How did he react?”

“He didn’t,” Amelia snaps before Maggie can answer. “All the other alphas in his pack are freaking out, scrambling to protect their mates, and Link doesn’t break a sweat. He’s the picture of cool as a damn cucumber.”

“Amelia,” Maggie sighs, “you weren’t there when it all went down. That’s probably why Link was able to stay calm. You two haven’t been put to the test yet. Besides, Parker and his girlfriend have been dating for years, and today only cemented their bond. Their mating proves there is a fair chance for you and Link to be mates too.”

Amelia’s lips stretch up sardonically, a cold, _dark_ , lifeless smile.

“The more he gets to know me,” she says, “the more he realizes how much he doesn’t like me much. I can see him taking a step back every day. Every day, a little step in the opposite direction. Mate test? I don’t think there’s a need for that. Because he doesn’t like me much, and one day he’s going to find some woman he does. And then he’ll walk away for good.”

“Amelia,” Meredith replies breathily. “Maggie is right. You don’t know how it’s going to turn out until the actual mate test happens, and until then, you have time to fix whatever is going on between you and Link. You can fix it—”

Glass and grape juice go flying, sailing right past Meredith’s left ear and crashing into the wall beyond her. Purple and crystal exploded onto the wallpaper, fat chunks of glass smashing into smaller ones as they hit the floor.

Silence comes again, sharper and meaner, as purple dribbles down the wall in thin, dark streaks.

“Amelia!” Maggie cries, but Amelia simply stands, that twisted smile never flagging.

“You think anything can be fixed if you will it enough, don’t you?” she sneers. “If you _will_ it enough, you can fix the medical board’s opinion of you and keep your license. If you _will_ it enough, you can fix Deluca and keep him. If you _will_ it enough, you can fix the mess you made and return everything to the way it was. But guess what? You can’t. You can’t fix things by willing it, by pushing so hard against the truth until it breaks!”

She whirls around and stares down Maggie.

“I wasn’t there,” she concedes. “But I was there after, and so I know there is a woman he likes better. I know he’s found her, even if he doesn’t know it yet. But he will, and when he does, it’s over. It’s over, and he’s just another guy I failed at.”

“Amelia!” Maggie shouts again, hastily setting her glass down and scrambling after Amelia, who stomps up the stairs by two. 

Meredith, though, stays put, lifting her glass to her lips, despite knowing that, behind her, the purple is sweeping into her carpet, flooding and swelling its fibers with a dark, inerasable stain.


	18. Month Five, Part 3: Pregnancy Brain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential trigger warning: Please be aware that this chapter touches on prejudice/sexism.

Like most big things, it starts out small. Insignificant. First, Levi forgets where he laid his keys the night before, but after a ten-minute search, he finds them next to the kitchen sink and blames exhaustion and a harried morning for the memory lapse. Then, it’s the name of the actor who played Lt. Brent on _Star Trek_ —the original, not the reboot—and, while frustrating, he doesn’t stress about it. With all the information that he has to keep track of, the literal matters of life and death, it makes sense that trivial facts would start to slip away, and he resigns himself to letting it go.

But then the forgotten things get bigger.

He finds himself staring at his phone, his finger hovering over the screen and waiting for muscle memory to kick in, only to stall again and again. Eventually, Nico gently pries the phone free from his grip and enters the four-digit code for him.

“It’s okay,” his mate assures him. “It’s natural.”

Dr. Evans says the same thing when he comes to fetch Levi for an appointment they should have had hours ago.

“Sorry…that’s today?” Levi, dumbstruck, apologizes. “I could’ve sworn that it was tomorrow. I even put it in my phone calendar as tomorrow. I…I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Dr. Evans admonishes. “It’s perfectly normal. Your hormones are at peak operating levels—it would be weird if it _didn’t_ affect your brain.”

Levi can appreciate the biological mechanisms of pregnancy brain, as can his coworkers, so when he mentally grasps for a medical term or a case detail, they are patient with him. They understand the forgetting is not indicative of his intelligence but rather the twenty-four/seven-construction going on inside of him.

Patients, on the other hand… Patients can only go by what is directly in front of them, and it is clear from the way the elderly patient in front of him is glaring that the man doesn’t think much of what he sees.

“And how long have you been experiencing this leg pain, Mr. Bates?” Levi asks, keeping his eyes glued to the questionnaire on his clipboard. Still, he feels the sear of the old man’s glare burning into his forehead.

“You already asked that, boy,” the old man, the portrait of crotchety, snarls. “Christ, are you both young and _dumb_?” Wincing, Levi places a hand over his belly. It’s a gesture that has become increasingly instinctive in the face of hostility or danger, as if his hand alone can protect the precious budding ears of his baby.

Mr. Bates clocks the gesture and arches a gray, wiry eyebrow.

“You’re an _omega_ ,” he observes aloud. “Omega” comes out like a dollop of spit, and while Levi may have forgotten many things, he remembers the sting of derision all too well. It has a certain tone, low and slurred, as if the speaker is trying to dislodge a small, tough piece of meat from between their teeth. He has heard it enough throughout his life to know it intimately. And yet it never sounds less barbarous. 

He takes a step back and bumps into Dr. Hunt, who smiles warmly at him and begins to reach for the clipboard.

“Schmitt,” he says, “I need you to go pick up some lab results for me. I can take over here—”

“Now just wait a minute,” Mr. Bates interrupts gruffly, “he is in the middle of examining me—”

“—and I assure you,” Dr. Hunt replies, “I can pick up right where he left off—”

“I want _him_ to finish it,” Mr. Bates insists, volume growing. “He’s doing fine.” Other eyes are starting to swing toward them, and Levi’s cheeks warm.

“It’s okay, Dr. Hunt,” he says quickly. “I am almost done, and when I finish, I will get those labs for you.” Dr. Hunt presses his lips together in a thin, unconvinced line but nods.

“Alright, but let me know if you need any help.”

Then he is gone, bustling off to assess a patient in a couple beds over, as Mr. Bates clears his throat.

“My wife,” he grumbles as Levi resumes looking over his leg, “God rest her soul, she seemed to forget everything, even her own name, when she was pregnant with our boy, Jamey. …He’s an omega like you, though you’d never know it by the way he ran wild.”

The old man’s eyes soften and become unfocused, and a small smile graces his chapped lips.

“Couldn’t tell that the boy nothin’,” he goes on. “He had to go fast and loved anything on wheels—bikes, ATVS, motorcycles, cars. Especially cars. He wanted to be a mechanic, like me. He wanted to take over the family garage one day. Of course, that was out of the question. A garage is no place an omega.”

Levi’s fingers, gently gripping Mr. Bates’s calf, fumble, and Mr. Bates’ smile evaporates as quickly as mist in desert heat.

“Your sire,” Mr. Bates asks suddenly, “are they…pleased with you being a doctor?”

“…I don’t know,” Levi answers quietly. “He died before I was born.”

“Sorry,” Mr. Bates replies. He shifts his jaw back and forth, cracking its hinges. “When he was eighteen, Jamey got tired of arguing with me about it. So he took off. No goodbye, no note. Just gone. Eventually, I heard he ended up down in Boulder and started his own garage. Got married too, according to my wife’s sister anyway. Five or six years ago, I got into my head that I should give him a call, and I got drunk enough to do it. Three rings, and then this little voice answers—do you know what you’re having yet?”

Levi retracts his fingers and retrieves the clipboard from where he had laid it at the end of the bed.

“Not yet,” Levi says, heaving up a small grin onto his face. “We find out next week.”

“My Jamey has a little boy,” Mr. Bates shares, his stare drifting again. “Well, I guess he must be close to eighteen himself these days….”

“Your symptoms indicate that you may have a blood clot in your leg,” Levi announces as he shelves his pen into the breast pocket of his coat. “I’ll order MRI to be sure, but if that is the case, we’ll start you on some blood thinners to keep the clot from getting any bigger—”

“What was it?” Mr. Bates cuts in. His gaze has refocused, and it is locked keenly on Levi. “What was it that I said that made your supervisor so concerned he tried to give you an escape route? That made you so obviously want to run?”

For a moment, Levi considers lying. What good will telling the truth do this man, advanced in age and probably out of chances? He can’t go back and do it over. The past isn’t like memory—it can’t be recovered, reshaped, or reimagined. The only thing they have in common is the ability to be forgotten. To be let go.

But Levi’s brain has gotten the short stick of his body’s energy, and if he can barely retain facts, he certainly cannot come up with a solid lie.

“…It’s not what you said,” Levi finally replies, crossing his arms over the clipboard and hugging it close to his chest. “It’s how you said it.”

“How I said it?” Mr. Bates echoes. Levi bestows him a nod.

“Like you just swallowed something awful,” he says, “and can’t wait to spit it out.”

Then, Levi is turning and moving away as fast as his feet will take him without breaking out into a full run. Just as he clears the pit, he nearly collides with Nico, whose arms immediately wound around his waist. 

“Hey, you okay?” Nico murmurs. “Hunt texted me and said some bigot was giving you a hard time.” Levi shakes his head.

“No, it’s nothing—”

“It’s not ‘nothing,’ Levi—”

“But it is,” Levi presses. “I’ve heard worse. Besides, with the way my memory has been lately, I might forget the whole thing in an hour.”

“Fine,” Nico sighs, “but let Hunt take it from here.” Smiling ruefully, Levi shakes head.

“There are always going to be people like him, Nico,” he says. “There will be people worse than him, and I will have to treat them, because that is the oath I made. I can’t and won’t forget that. So, I have to see this through.”

Nico wants to argue—the trepidation on his face is as evident as a thick smear of rogue—but he doesn’t. Instead, he leans down to kiss Levi on the forehead, and the memory of that kiss’ warmth carries Levi through the rest of his day.

Maggie does not care for realizations, particularly the way they fall from the sky and smack you across the head. Maybe that is the case for all surgeons, though. There are few things more disconcerting than cracking open a ribcage and uncovering something you aren’t expecting—a torn aorta, a myocardial rupture, a bleed without beginning or end. A revelation means there is something you did not see coming. Something that you did not have the foresight to anticipate. A realization is proof that you did not know everything when you needed to know it.

And it’s that feeling, that terrible sinking dread, that comes over her, as she, standing atop of the main lobby staircase, sees the scene unfold: Pham perkily bouncing her way up the stairs and grinning over her shoulder at Link, who, smiling back, follows half a step behind. And Amelia speeding down the stairs in their blind spot.

Amelia’s blue eyes flash in the fluorescent light, and before Maggie can shout—before she can even cough up a squeak—Amelia’s shoulder rams against Pham’s. Hard. Pham’s bounce titters. Then tilts.

Her grin begins to collapse as gravity’s grip tightens on her small body and pulls it airborne. Her dark almond eyes widen, and her chest inflates, a sharp inhale pushing up her petite breasts.

Pham is terrified, and Maggie does not fault her. They are both doctors, so they both know what a tumble down a flight of stairs will do to the bones. To the tissues and the organs. 

Link is a doctor too, so his arms do not hesitant to shoot out and catch that falling, frail body. He sweeps her to him, the toes of her sneakers barely grazing the step as she flattens against his chest. His broad hand cups the back of her head just as her loose bun comes undone, her long hair spilling loose in a copper brown avalanche.

Maggie can’t see Pham’s face, but Link’s face is unobstructed, his fury unfiltered. His eyes…his blue eyes…overrun with dilated black.

“Amelia!” he thunders. “ _Amelia_!”

Unheeding his calls, Amelia keeps speeding down the stairs, practically leaping off the penultimate step, and disappears out of the main doors. Instantly, Maggie gives chase and, on the way down, tries to avoid even a glimpse of Pham and Link, but her peripheral vision snags on Pham as she pushes herself a degree off of Link’s chest. Her oak irises have a glassy, stupefied sheen, and with her hair loose and billowed, she is beautifully windswept, shocked but secured in Link’s hold.

And that’s when it really hits—the realization. It sucker punches Maggie right in the jaw, so hard she almost trips down the last four or five stairs. But she clings to her balance and makes it outside upright. 

Amelia hasn’t gotten far, just to the edge of the parking lot. She stands hands on hips, her head tilted up toward the sky, cloudless blue stretching out as far as the eye can travel.

“…When…,” Maggie says thickly. “…When did you know?”

“The day Parker’s girlfriend came into the pit.” Amelia’s answer is short. Crisp. Strung tight like a guitar string about to break.

“But how—”

“Link was upset,” she responds rapidly. “Maybe seeing Parker and his girlfriend confirmed as mates got him thinking about us. He went to go hide out in your green room, and Pham was already in there, eating a clementine. I had followed him, because anyone with eyes could see he was upset about something. But she doesn’t ask him what’s wrong. No, she offers him a piece of her clementine and then launches into a story about that brother she is always going on about. And when she’s finished? When she’s finished, he smiles. He _smiles._ That’s when I knew.”

“Why—why did you push her then?” Maggie demands. “Push her to him? If you hadn’t—”

“If I hadn’t,” Amelia cries, snapping around, “she would still be there. She would still exist. She would be out there, right there, lurking like the end of days. And I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know if he would fall in love her before the mating bond sets in. At least now…at least now whether he would’ve or wouldn’t have is moot. At least now we can all have a clean break.”

There are no tears in Amelia’s eyes and no tears in her voice either. Just a hard, resigned line.

“What about your son?” Maggie asks, and Amelia just shrugs.

“He’ll still have two parents who love him,” she replies. “Three actually. And he’s not even one yet, so he won’t remember us ever being together. You can’t lose something you never really had.”

Bullshit _._ _Bullshi_ t Maggie wants to scream. But what good would it do? Amelia has the made the choice for herself and her son. For Link and Pham too.

“…Dyugen is an omega,” she says instead, “and now she is a _mated_ omega, which means suppressants won’t work on her anymore. So, once she goes into heat, she will probably get pregnant, unless she takes birth control, and who knows if that even works on mated omegas? Are you ready for that? Watching Link live out the life you and he planned on together with _her_?”

Amelia smirks.

“Does it matter?”

She then half-walks, half-runs past Maggie back toward the hospital door, and as the sound of her footsteps fade away, Maggie lifts her eyes to the blue overhead.

Does it? Does it matter?

She waits for an answer that does not come.

“That’s fantastic!” Maya is exclaiming. Her toned arms wrap around Carina and give her body a quick squeeze. Pulling away, she grins beamingly at Carina, but Carina cannot get her mouth to reciprocate. She tugs and tugs, but her lips remain frozen in a partial part.

Maya’s grin melts millimeter by millimeter.

“This is good news, Carina,” she says slowly. “You get to keep your license. You get to practice medicine again. That is what you wanted, isn’t?”

No. 

No, it’s not. 

What Carina wants is to go back five months and shake sense into herself. What she wants is to go back and dispel whatever delusion had taken hold of her then. 

…What had she been thinking? What madness had she given into? What had made her forget that Schmitt and Kim are people, people with as much right to private lives as anyone else?

What the hell made her blabber to her mentally her unstable brother, and what gave her the gall to be indignant when the blame for all that came after was rightfully laid at her feet?

…Why does she get to go on as she was before, while her brother must construct a new self?

What gives her the right? …the good fortune?

All these questions and more swarm her mind, attacking and devouring it like a pack of locusts. So when she finally manages to make her lips move, they do not smile. Instead, they quiver before wrenching apart, freeing an agonized howl.


	19. Month Five, Part 4: Gender Theory

_“Jo Wilson!”_

Absentmindedly, the aforementioned rubs her ringing ear. Who would have thought that a man of such small stature could produce such a booming wail? Well, Jo reconsiders, Levi isn’t so small in stature anymore, at least where his middle is concerned anyway. As he barrels towards her, his protruding belly leads the way, and there is no doubt that he has rounded the corner from visibly _possibly_ pregnant to _unequivocally_ pregnant. Cafeteria diners scramble to duck and dodge out of his way, if not because of Levi’s thunderous scowl, then because of the alpha who ambles indulgingly behind, his dark oak eyes sweeping the path ahead of his mate and seemingly clearing away any lingering obstacle.

“Jo,” Levi growls again once he reaches her table, “why is my OB under the impression I am having a gender reveal party?”

Nonchalantly, Jo takes a generous bite of her roast beef sandwich.

“Because you are having a gender reveal party,” she pushes out through and around half-mashed food, the words folding over themselves and melding into mush. Levi’s cheeks ripen from grapefruit pink to bright cherry red.

“Why does everyone insistent on throwing me parties without telling me until the last possible minute?”

“Babe,” Nico purrs, and Jo exaggerates a gag. He flashes a playful glare at her but quickly switches back to Levi and places his hands on the omega’s hips. “Please calm down. You didn’t give me a chance to finish—”

“—Finish telling me what?” Levi hisses. “That I will be informed of my baby’s biological sex at a time and place to be determined by someone else? I don’t like the idea of gender reveal parties. I don’t want to automatically assume that our kid is cis. I mean, sure, statistically they probably are cis, but I don’t want to tell them who they are before they’re even born. Casey and I were just talking about this—”

“Honey,” Nico sighs more assertively, “I promise, no one is trying to tell our baby who or how to be. It was supposed to be a surprise, the party.”

In a blink, Levi goes from raging bull to a poor deer-in-the-headlights as he twists his head over his shoulder to gape at Nico.

“What?”

“You know how Evans is when it comes to patient confidentiality,” Jo, gearing up for another bite of roast beef and bread, chimes in. “You would have better luck prying secrets out of a corpse than you would getting a single syllable out of that man. You think I could get him to hand over the results of your ultrasound by saying ‘pretty please’?”

Sinking her teeth into her sandwich, Jo conveniently neglects to mention she had tried just that. Nico hadn’t lied—the party was supposed to have been a surprise. More accurately, though, it was supposed to have been a surprise for both him and Levi. Yet, when Jo had put on her best smile and deployed her sweetest pleading voice, Evans had remained unmoved, his coal dark eyes iron vaults. So, she had been forced to loop in one of the expecting parents, and Nico was the obvious choice. Levi is wound tighter than a box spring, the spiral cinching tighter and tighter with each passing day, and is in serious need of levity. Nico had readily agreed and had set about ensuring that Evans would seal the ultrasound results and send them onto Jo. 

But whatever tactic Nico had used to keep Levi from asking questions clearly hadn’t work, and Evans must have assumed that Levi had known about the party, because here they are, the surprise in shreds. 

“You’ve been so stressed out,” Nico explains, moving his hands to the swell of Levi’s stomach. “We just want to give you a night of fun.”

“We tried that, remember?” Levi mumbles with no real heat. “It ended with a broken patio door and a guest in a cast.”

“It’s not going to be anything like that,” Jo assures. “First of all, the only one with the dough needed to pull something off on that scale is Jackson, and I had to pull half of his teeth out just to get him to agree to let us have the party at his place. And honestly, ‘party’ might be an overstatement. It’s pack and pizza and cake dyed either pink or blue inside.”

“Just pack?” Levi repeats doubtfully. “Not our parents?”

“Your folks are lovely,” Jo says, “but hell no. Kim’s mother is terrifying, and yours is always to trying to shove food into someone’s face, usually yours. So, yeah, just pack.”

“Low key,” Kim emphasizes. “Low key and mom-free.”

Levi purses his lips in consideration, his blue-hazel eyes still as distrustful as a cat staring down bath water. Groaning, Jo sets her sandwich down and crosses her arms as she eases back into her seat.

“Look,” she sighs, “if mini Schmitt-Kim advises you at some point that they are in fact not cis, we’ll have another celebration for their actual gender. In fact, we won’t even call tonight’s party a gender reveal. We’ll call it a ‘b.s.’ reveal.”

“B.S.?” Levi echoes, a tendril of amusement curling beneath his words. Jo’s lips quirk.

“Biological sex,” she explains. Levi’s mouth smooths out into a mollified smirk, and he runs a palm along the long curve of his belly.

“…Fine,” he concedes with a huff. “But the pizza better be _extra_ cheesy.” Immediately, Nico leers, his eyes going dark and bedroom. Jolting, Jo realizes that, between the two of them, “chees”y must be a double entendre, and her appetite turns to dust.

“Oh, eew,” she gags, throwing up her hands. “Whatever is happening, take it somewhere else. People eat here.”

His leer stretching into Cheshire territory, Nico laces his fingers through Levi’s and tugs him gently toward the cafeteria’s double doors.

“You heard the lady,” he hums. “Let’s go take it somewhere else.”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” she half-shouts after them, “you already made a baby!”

But they are gone, too wrapped up in one another to pay her trailing admonishment any attention. Lovebirds—absolutely nauseating, the way they flutter and flap and sing at the top of their lungs. And tonight? Tonight, lovebirds will surround Jo on all sides.

Shuddering at the thought, she pushes away her plate and fishes her phone out of her interior coat pocket. In three quick swipes, she has the local pizza joint’s website pulled up and begins to enter tonight’s order, an extra cheesy cheese pizza the first item she adds to her virtual cart.

Link had not been an awkward teen. In fact, you could say that he had been the stereotypical, textbook All-American boy back in high school: blonde, tall, varsity jock, honor student. He had been everything that teen girls were told they were supposed to want, so he didn’t have to try very hard, if at all, to win the affections of the girl of his choice. Plus, charm had come naturally to him, and it still does. So, why is his stomach now performing acrobatics from the floor of his abdominal cavity to the ceiling of his thorax? It is just Dyugen before him, fresh from a four-hour surgery in not so-fresh scrubs and Kelly-green crocs. 

It’s just Dyugen, he reminds himself again as he takes a step toward where she, balancing on the edge of a stool, is typing post-op notes into her patient’s electronic chart. Her fingers dance deftly across the keyboard, and they don’t stop as she glances up and flashes a tired yet toothy grin.

Link’s stomach does three full tumbles.

“H-hey,” he stutters. 

“Hey,” she chirps.

“…How did your surgery go? A whipple, right?” Turning back to the computer screen, she shrugs.

“It was fine,” she replies. “We got the tumor completely out, and the patient is doing well.”

“Sounds like it went more than fine.” The words fall flat into a stiff silence that stretches thin between them until Dyugen breaks it with a bemused, tinkling chuckle.

“Did you want something, Link?” she asks. Nodding jerkily, he clears his throat roughly.

“Are you going to Schmitt and Kim’s gender— _b.s._ party tonight at Jackson’s?” 

Dyugen’s grin softens, and her fingers still in a graceful pause.

“I received an invitation,” she says, her voice uncharacteristically subdued, “but I assumed that it was contingent upon your attendance.”

“I am going,” he blurts out. “If you want to go, we could go together….”

“Link,” she hedges, lifting her hands from the keyboard and laying them down in her lap, “I know we’re…mated, but I also know you’re living with another woman with whom you just had a baby. I am not under the delusion that you’ll instantly stop loving her, and I am not in the habit of homewrecking. So, please, don’t feel obligated to me. You don’t owe me anything—” Her cheeks flush as she bites her lower lip in reconsideration. 

“Well,” she amends, her voice picking up steam, “my heat is next month, and I can’t suppress it now, so I would appreciate help with that. Unmedicated heats are painful without a partner. But I’ve started birth control—not that I can promise it will work given our mating—but…I guess what I am trying to say is I don’t expect anything beyond that. I don’t expect you to drop everything for me. You have a whole life without me. I promise I’ll respect that.”

She starts to swivel back to the computer screen, signaling she believes the matter over and settled, and Link can remember a time not that long ago when relief would’ve flooded him after hearing this proclamation. Yet, back then, he could resolutely say he was in love with another woman and was quite content in the place beside her. But witnessing Amelia’s rage these past weeks has made him realize how little they actually know each. They had been enjoying something fun and frothy when Amelia’s pregnancy had sent them into whiplash and whirling toward slipshod domesticity. And maybe they could have made sculpted something lasting out of that, Dyugen or no Dyugen.

But then Amelia decided there was no hope for them. She, who had once demanded him decide if he loved and wanted her regardless of her child’s paternity, refused to take a leap of faith for them herself. It is ironic, really, that his fated mate holds more regard for his pairing than his pair.

Well, there is nothing left to honor or respect—Amelia has made that perfectly clear.

“Dyugen,” he says, emerging confidence corralling his stomach back into place, “I want to take you to a pizza party tonight. I want to sit with you and friends and drink and laugh. I want to bet if Schmitt’s carrying a boy or a girl—a male or female—and I want to eat cake with you. And after that, I want to take you home, and, if it feels right, I might want to kiss you goodnight. And, tomorrow, I want to take you to the Mariners’ game, and if the kiss cam lands on us, I will definitely kiss you in front of the whole stadium.”

“…Even if I am Cardinals fan and show up completely decked out in red?” she queries, her smile tilting mischievously. “Because I am, and I will.”

“Even then,” he laughs.

“Okay,” she finally agrees. “Pick up me at sixty-thirty.”

“Six-thirty,” Link repeats eagerly. Deciding to perform an unsolicited encore, his stomach flips again. And again. “Perfect! I will be there six-thirty on dot! Six-thirty!”

Dyugen blinks, and, his face hot, Link powerwalks away as fast as his feet will carry him. Still, he hears Dyugen let out a delighted laugh, and his stomach somersaults.

This is not the first time Vikram has seen Natalie in clothes that are not a suit. In fact, it is the fifth time, but the novelty has yet to wear off, and he certainly hasn’t seen her before in something as loose and relaxed as the blue sweatshirt dress she has on now. It’s always been tight and tailored, leaving no room for even a hint of vulnerability. But now she is wearing her black hair loose, the thick locks falling just past her shoulders in the softest of waves, and the style, combined with the way her dress sleeves fall just to her fingertips, makes her look so young, younger than him. Maybe it is the gentle lighting outside of Avery’s condo, but Vikram swears she could be mistaken for an eighteen-year-old coed.

Then her ice blue eyes snap to him, and there is no question it is all grown woman standing beside him.

“What?” she demands.

“You look,” he says, swallowing, “you look…” His tongue grasps desperately for the right word, and she casts a look down at her dress.

“Oh this?” she assumes. “I wasn’t about to dress up for a _pizza_ party.”

“It’s a gender reveal,” Vikram, unable to think of what else to say, rushes to correct. “Well, I think Dahlia said to call it a ‘b.s.’ party now—”

“A very apt description,” Natalie mutters before fixing a glare on Avery’s door. “Speaking of Qadri, where is her lesser half? We’ve rung the doorbell twice, and he still hasn’t answered. So far, I find his manners wanting. I would’ve thought Catherine’s son was raised better. Maybe I should give her a call and ask her. I do have her on speed dial.”

“Please play nice,” Vikram begs. “Dahlia said tonight is supposed to be stress free—”

“ _Dahlia s_ ays a lot to you these days.” Natalie’s voice is a knife edge, and her fingers twitch, the red polish of their nails glinting and gleaming like polished throwing daggers.

“W-we’re just friends!” he cries. “And she’s the only one that really talks to me. I mean, you talk to me, of course, when you see me, but you are off doing your lawyer thing, and I spend most of my day with people who think I’m incompetent.” A reputation he earned, he knows, but he doesn’t say it aloud, mostly because Natalie is already well acquainted with that fact. “Dahlia at least pretends to care about what I have to say.”

Natalie is silent a moment, her burgundy painted lips pressing together in a flat line. Then, she sighs, the artic blue of her eyes melting a degree.

“Everyone needs a work wife I suppose,” she replies. “Lord knows I couldn’t make it through most days without mine.”

Instantaneously, blood floods Vikram’s neck, as his pupils start to dilate.

“ _Who_?” he growls. “Who—”

A coquettish simper stretches across Natalie’s face, lounging beautifully between her creamy white cheeks, and the anger dissipates as quickly as it had come. She is teasing him, it dawns on him, and not in a way that is sarcastic or cruel but rather…affectionate. She is being _affectionate_ towards him, which by definition means she is _fond_ of him. Despite his best efforts to play it cool, he can feel his lips perking up and stretching wide. She begins to mirror him, her lips own parting like a velvet curtain to unveil a chorus line of white.

But then the condo door finally swings open, and the softer side of Natalie vanishes, seamlessly replaced by steel. Oddly, though, Vikram is perfectly fine with this—there is no need for Avery, appearing in the doorway and pulling a t-shirt over his ridiculous washboard of an abdomen, to know that Natalie is capable of more than scowling.

“Have you gone temporarily deaf?” she drawls. “We rang—” Pausing, her eyes narrow as she cocks head to peer around Avery’s broad frame. Vikram follows suit and catches sight of Dahlia hastily rearranging a floral print al-amira around her shoulders.

“I see,” Natalie smirks. “It was a special kind of penile dysfunction.”

“Nice to see you too, Beckham,” Avery sighs. He steps aside to allow them to shuffle in. Natalie waves her hand dismissively.

“No need for pleasantries, Avery,” is the acerbic reply. “Just keep your fist away from my alpha’s person, and I promise not to ‘accidently’ spill wine on your rug. I assume there are adult beverages at this juvenile affair?”

Avery’s green-grey glare drills a hole into the back of Natalie’s head as he grits his teeth, but before he can fire off a retort, Dahlia leaps forward and grabs Natalie’s writs.

“Follow me,” she says with abundant enthusiasm, “I will show you where the drinks are.”

“I don’t know how you do it, man,” Avery grumbles to Vikram as the ladies head toward the kitchen. “That woman is so cold-blooded she’s reptilian.”

Yes, Vikram thinks, let everyone else believe Natalie is all stone and cold and sharp. That way, he can have the soft center of her all to himself.

For his next medical journal article, Nico decides, he is going to investigate whether someone can get intoxicated from cheese, because it appears as if Levi has. He hasn’t had a drop of alcohol, but after four pizza slices oozing cheese, he is extremely drowsy, his head pillowed against Taryn’s collarbone, much to the chagrin of Piper, who has been regulated to the arm of Jackson’s couch.

“Let’s cut this cake already,” Piper gripes, “before the incubator is completely knocked out.”

“How about we not refer to my husband as an incubator?” Nico snips as he gathers up discarded paper plates from the glass coffee table.

“How about you come retrieve your husband from my girlfriend’s lap?” Piper shoots back.

“Oooh, so it’s official?” Jayla asks excitedly. “When did this happen?”

“Yeah, I didn’t see anything in the chat about this,” Jo chimes in. “I thought I made it perfectly clear that if it’s not in the pack chat, it didn’t happen.”

“We are not calling it the ‘pack’ chat,” Beckham asserts. She is perched on Roy’s knee like a queen on her throne and has yet to offer anything that can pass for a smile. “I am also not using it. None of you need to be kept abreast of our business.”

“I second that,” Dyugen adds cheerily. “Not the name part—‘pack chat’ is an awesome name. I just don’t do group chats. The constant notifications drive me crazy.”

The conversation continues, but Nico misses what is said next as he slips away to the kitchen to toss the disposable utensils. He is mildly surprised to find Casey there, because he had assumed the intern had disappeared to the bathroom. Yet, instead, he is standing arms crossed in front of the kitchen counter where a cake sits. It is two, thick layers iced white and decorated all over with cursive black question marks.

“When they were pregnant with me, my parents had a gender reveal party,” Casey says suddenly just as Nico throws the plates and dirty napkins into the trash can. “I’ve seen the pictures. They went all out—used smoke bombs to announce what they were having. Pink smoke everywhere. My aunt, who was the one person who knew, had a sign made ahead of time—‘It’s a girl!’”

Casey’s voice trails off, sinking like down like a boat disappearing into ocean waves. Nico slips his hands into his jean pockets.

“Except they weren’t having a girl,” Nico finishes for him. Chuckling dolefully, Casey shakes his head.

“No,” he agrees, “they weren’t. And when I informed them of that fact sixteen years later, it was like…I stole something from them—someone from them. Don’t get me wrong—they came around eventually, and they accept me now. But there were years they preferred to tell people their daughter was dead than say they had a healthy, thriving son.”

Casey inhales slowly, his eyelids fluttering shut, and then exhales audibly.

“I am not telling you how to raise your kid,” he says, pivoting on the ball of his foot to look Nico in the eye. “We might be pack, but I know it’s not my place. And I know you and Levi will be great parents. I just hope that if, down the line, your kid tells you that whatever color is inside that cake doesn’t reflect who they are, you’ll know that they aren’t taking anything from you. They’re sharing something—someone—very precious.”

Nico smiles kindly.

“We’ve picked pretty traditional names,” he confesses, “but we’ve agreed that our kid has the right to change it if it doesn’t fit them. Honestly, I don’t care if the color inside that cake is green. I just want a safe birth, a healthy baby, and a happy mate. That’s it.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Casey replies, more mirth in his tone. They share a light laugh that shrinks to a squeak of surprise as Jo comes hurdling in.

“You better not be trying to peek, Kim!” she scolds. “Out!” Nico balks.

“I am nowhere near it—”

“ _Out_! You too Parker!”

The alphas take heed and scramble to return to the living room. As Casey reclaims his spot beside Jayla, Nico takes the seat Taryn happily vacates, and Levi immediately melts into his side.

“Babe,” Nico murmurs, gently shaking Levi’s shoulder, “you need to stay awake for just a little longer, okay? We still need to cut the cake.”

“Cake?” Levi repeats sleepily, seemingly summoning the dessert in question, because Jo whisks it in, presenting to them like a bottle of champagne.

“Alright,” she announces, “it’s time to dispense with the suspense. Time for the reveal, boys.” She sets the cake down on the coffee table and holds out a knife handle first. Gingerly, Nico takes it.

“Come on, hon,” he tells Levi, “help me out.”

Blinking, Levi becomes a little more alert and conjoins his hand with the one Nico has gripped around the knife. Together, they cut the cake once and then twice to form a slim “V.” After, turning its blade sideways, they push the knife under the slice and lift.

Between the layers of snowy white frost is cotton pink sponge.

“Naava!” Levi hiccups happily, dewy tears speckling his blue-hazel eyes. “We’re having a _Naava_.” A firework of warmth bursts inside Nico’s chest. _Naava._

Setting down the knife, both his and Levi’s hands fly to the latter’s baby bump and lace together over the swell.

“Can’t wait you to meet you,” Nico whispers, his voice too low for anyone but Levi to hear. “We can’t wait to meet you, Naava.”


	20. Month Six, Part 1: Heartburn

Say what you want about hate, but it does have a way of binding people together. Churchill must have had it right when he spoke on friends and foes, because how else do you explain Amelia commiserating with, of all the souls on Earth, Teddy? It is still all too fresh in her memory how they had longed after the same man and had served as a simmering source of misgiving for each other. But here they are now, sitting side by side in Grey Sloan’s auditorium, their arms crossed and their eyes boring into the back of Dyugen Pham’s skull. 

They are a double dose of hate. A perfect replication of loathing.

But if Pham can feel abhorrence bearing down upon on her, she imitates indifference flawlessly and instead beams brightly as she hands something small to Jo, who holds it out in front of her. It’s a bracelet, delicate and tiny chain links fastened to each short end of a rectangular golden plate. Two rows up, Amelia has difficulty making out the looping scroll inscribed on the plate’s smooth surface, but she readily identifies the four precious gems at each corner as white opals.

“Oh this is so cute!” Jo coos. “And your brother made this?” Pham’s head bobs in a nod.

“Yeah,” Pham confirms. “Jewelry design is actually the Pham family business, and Danh took to it like a fish to water. Believe or not, I’m the black sheep—not a single artistic bone in my body.”

“Well, it’s gorgeous. I’m sure Levi and Kim will love it.”

“I don’t care if they like it,” Pham snorts humorously. “It’s Naava’s opinion that I care about.” She and Jo share a giggle, and Amelia hears Teddy gag beside her.

“You’d think she was a preteen constantly hyped up on sugar,” Amelia, syncing with Teddy’s revulsion, sneers lowly. 

“She _is_ constantly hyped up on sugar,” Teddy points out. “Have you ever seen her go more than an hour without sucking on a lollipop?”

An image lays siege to Amelia’s mind: Link digging a fistful of suckers out of his pocket and holding them out to Pham like a bouquet of miniature roses. Pham smiling bashfully as she accepts them. 

“…Only when she is operating,” Amelia grumbles as she shakes the unwanted picture away.

“Speaking of operating,” Teddy says indignantly, “Schmitt asked if he can scrub in on one of _her_ surgeries later today even though _he_ is on my service. The patient is fond of him, I guess, and asked that he be in the OR. So, Pham invited him to join without first asking me, so if I say no, then _I_ look like the bad guy.”

“So what you are going to do?” Amelia asks.

“What else?” Teddy scoffs. “I’m going to say ‘sure,’ of course. It’s an esophagectomy. What am I supposed to say? ‘No, you can’t scrub in on Pham’s complicated surgery because I need you to do my charts?’ How do I not come out looking like an unreasonable hard ass?”

If Amelia thinks about Teddy’s dislike of Pham too long, she starts to get aggravated. She is perceptive enough to know that Teddy has developed some weird obsession with Schmitt and is disconcertedly focused on enduring herself to him. Moreover, she views Pham as a rival for the intern’s attentions, even though most anyone can see that Pham treats him no differently than any other intern. Despite now being pack by association, Pham remains resolute in her division of the personal and the professional, and, within the four walls of this hospital, you would never guess she has any other connection to Schmitt beyond attending and underling. Her displaying the baby bracelet for Schmitt’s child to Jo as they wait for the attending meeting to start is an exception to her usual behavior, probably permissible because Jo is an equal and work is paused.

Teddy’s grievance against Pham is flimsy at best and ludicrous in actuality. Pham hasn’t taken anything from her. And, truthfully, she hasn’t taken anything from Amelia either. How can Amelia forget that she was the one who quite literally pushed Pham to Link? She had convinced herself that you can’t lose what you choose to give away. Whether or not that is true doesn’t matter, because Amelia had tossed Pham at Link, and you certainly cannot steal what you are freely given. 

But logic and reason have never been friends of hate. Amelia can understand that Pham has done nothing wrong and can simultaneously blame her for Link packing up and moving out. She can get that Pham has never wished her ill and in the same breath fault her for the fact that Amelia now relies on a lawyer to sort the custody of her son. Pham is not to blame, but she is the reason everything in Amelia’s life has gone so very wrong. And yet there she sits unruffled and—

A little green. She has her fingers pressed to her forehead and is massaging the skin there in slow, waxing circles. Jo, meanwhile, is looking over Pham’s shoulder and down the aisle.

“Oh, Link and Kim are coming!” she squeaks. “Here, quick, take back the bracelet before Kim sees it—Dyugen?”

Jo’s gaze worriedly falls to Pham, who is definitely starting to flush and sweat. She sways in her seat, and Jo’s free hand shoots out to stable her shoulder.

“Dyugen!” she cries again.

“Think she is finally coming off that high?” Teddy sneers, but the joke wobbles and falls flat. There is no such thing as a sugar high, only a sugar low, and the burning that stings the space around her heart warns Amelia that is not hypoglycemia causing Pham to shake like a lone leaf clinging to a tree branch in a windstorm as she tries to stand.

Taking a step, Pham falters and another hand steadies her, but, this time, it is Link’s strong grasp.

“Dyugen, what’s wrong?” Link demands anxiously.

“I think,” Jo sighs sharply, “you need to take her to the den, Link. Now.” Link’s baby blues swell and then fly to Pham’s heavy lidded doe browns.

“B-but,” he strutters, “the den is not done yet.”

“It’s done enough,” Kim cuts in. Surreptitiously, he is putting space between himself and his mentor, silently respecting the space of a fellow alpha whose mate is rapidly descending into heat. “You need to go now, or else there is going to be another Code Luna.”

Link seems not to need any more prodding, because suddenly he is folding Pham into his arms and leading her away down the aisle and out of the auditorium.

“I know Dyugen said it was coming,” Jo tells Kim. “I just didn’t think it would hit that fast.”

Neither did Amelia. She knew it in theory—Pham had made no secret of her secondary gender, and as a mated omega, a true heat would inevitably strike—but she had no inkling it would strike so soon. …That she would have a front row seat to her worst nightmare materializing.

To Link choosing Pham once and for all.

“You okay?” Teddy asks. The malice has disappeared from her voice, and somehow her pity makes it worse.

“I’m fine,” Amelia bites back. She straightens in her seat and keeps her chest lifted and tall, masking the burn that is steadily building inside. Still, as if seeing right through her, Teddy gently places a palm between Amelia’s shoulder blades and begins to rub the expanse of back between them.

_The enemy of my enemy is my friend_ indeed.

Blake must have committed a truly heinous crime in a past life. That, or God simply has a twisted sense of humor. Of all the doctors in this hospital, of all the interns and residents and attendings, why is it _Schmitt_ who comes waddling into his exam room? A hand balanced on his baby bump, he smiles nervously at Blake as he closes the door behind him.

“Hi Dr. Simms,” Schmitt says. The greeting is taunt and brittle, and Blake, shirtless, shifts uncomfortably on the exam table.

“My appointment is with Avery,” he replies bluntly. “You on his service?”

“No,” Schmitt admits. “I’m actually on Altman’s service, but the attendings are all in a meeting, so us residents are covering for them, and I am the only who was available.” He utters the last part like a sincere apology as if he knows he is the last person Blake wanted to walk through the door. And he is right, but Blake is certain he has the reason wrong.

“But the meeting should be wrapping up now,” Schmitt rushes to add, “and Dr. Avery should be here very soon. I’ll just get the preliminary stuff out of the way, vitals and all that.”

Fan-fucking-static. Just when Blake is finally working Schmitt out of his system—just when feeling has begun to filter back into his fingertips—Schmitt is leaning into his space and pressing a stethoscope against his chest. There is no escaping Schmitt’s scent, cloaked the musk of an alpha who is not Blake, and, still, there is also no resisting the urge to lean a little closer and inhale deeper, because if he flares his nostrils enough, he can pick up hints of Schmitt’s true fragrance. 

A perfect blend of sweet and woody. Faint but there, lingering _, teasing_. Just enough to remind Blake of what he fought for within an inch of his life and lost.

“Hmm,” Schmitt murmurs, “your heartrate is a little elevated.”

“I chugged some Red Bull before PT today,” Blake lies easily. “Must be the caffeine.” Schmitt unhooks the stethoscope’s tips from his ears and winds its tubing over his shoulders as he frowns.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you how awful those are for you.”

“Then don’t,” Blake snaps and instantly regrets it when Schmitt eases away from him, sweet and woody disappearing underneath Kim’s bergamot, cardamom, and pine. 

“Look,” he tries again, this time softening the edges of his words, “sometimes I need a little boost to get going. PT is slow, and it will probably be another month or two before Koracick will even let me look in the direction of an OR. So, after months have staring at the hospital ceiling, I sit at home staring the ceiling of my house. It doesn’t exactly give me much to look forward to.”

_Plus,_ he doesn’t say, _there is the fact you were always mine to lose_. Even if in some other timeline Blake had meet Schmitt first—loved him first—Kim would still win in the end, because that is how fate or God or the universe had cast the die. Maybe then he is better off having never known the sensation of Schmitt’s skin against his. Maybe it had all happened the way it did, because Blake can survive _almost_ _mine_. Maybe _used to be_ would’ve a bullet to the heart.

“Blake,” Schmitt says, and Goddamn it if isn’t the most beautifully heartbreaking sound Blake has ever heard. “I am sorry…everything that happened, I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t be,” Blake cuts off with believable breeziness. “It was all pheromones and instinct, and no one was thinking straight. No one was thinking. Trust me, if I had been, I would’ve been nowhere near the seventh floor.”

Schmitt grins, and Blake’s chest throbs. It shouldn’t hurt—how easily Schmitt buys his casual malice—but it does. It burns. 

_Scorches_.

A knock at the door has Schmitt turning his back to Blake, oblivious to his patient’s distress as Avery comes sweeping in.

“Sorry, Simms,” Avery announces. “Staff meeting ran over. Koracick loves to hear himself talk. No offense.”

“None taken,” Blake plays off. “I know that better than anyone. He can and has talked for hours.” Chuckling, Avery sits down on a mobile stool and rolls closer.

“Let’s take a look at how that arm is doing.” Avery’s gloved fingers start prodding at Blake’s shoulder, and Blake fights like hell to stay focus on their examination. But Avery’s voice fades to muddled white noise as he spies Schmitt slipping out of the exam room and into golden, muscled arms.

Blake pretends that the subsequent agony in his left pectoral is deferred pain from Avery stretching out the weak muscles and tendons of his arm and rotating the bruised bone in its socket.

“Definitely more movement than the last time I saw you,” Avery observes. “You’re making great progress.”

“Good to know that those PT exercises are paying off,” Blake hisses through gritted teeth. “Honestly, it feels like I’m going backward sometimes.” 

“Rehab is never easy,” Avery sympathizes. “But keep putting in the work, and you’ll keep moving forward.”

Avery releases his arm, gingerly laying it down along Blake’s side, yet the tenderness does nothing to ease the blow of Schmitt’s and Kim’s mingled laughs creeping through the crack in the door. His nostrils flare again, seeking what is already gone.

Meredith does not see him at first. Her eyes are where they are supposed to be, on her two younger children sliding down a plastic, curving red slide and scrambling up its stairs to go again. The temperature is a comfortable seventy-six, warm but not stifling, and blue and sunshine reign above—a perfect day for the park and playground. Bailey and Ellis haven’t stopped squealing since Meredith announced their excursion, and their cries of delight now leap across the hilly break in the surrounding trees.

She only wants to enjoy this brief, blue reprieve. To momentarily forget the storm clouds that drift just beyond the horizon.

But then he appears, jogging down the paved path that winds out of the far, thick copse of evergreens, and though his silhouette is barely bigger than a miniature toy solider, Meredith recognizes him instantly. She has been too intimate with the lines and planes of his body not to. 

Slowing to a stop, he leans over, resting his palms on his bended knees. He gives his red t-shirt, soaked through with sweat, a couple quick tugs, and then he looks up.

Across the green, their eyes meet. 

Can he tell it is her, she wonders, or is she just a blob of color barely discernable from the background? 

Lethargically, he stands, his chest rising and falling in labored, dramatic breaths. She mirrors him, hesitantly rising from the park bench.

Her foot inches into the grass blades.

Abruptly, Andrew goes back the way he came, disappearing out of sight into the dark of the trees. 

Meredith sinks back down.

_He didn’t see me_ , she tells herself. _Not really_.

_He didn’t see_ me _._

Stance Newman has lost jobs before. He has even been fired before, once when he was seventeen and missed his after-school shift at McDonald’s because he was too busy sucking face with Lisa Rivers in the back of his Dad’s old Chevy. 

But he hadn’t lost a job he really loved until Ford Industries. He doesn’t blame Griffin, of course—it was Stance’s fault for getting caught by the shark masquerading as Grey Sloan’s legal counsel. Even if it hadn’t been for Stance’s incompetence, the optics of keeping him on were damning, especially with the Bonding Bureau sniffing around.

Still, Stance refuses to go without knowing that he has exhausted every avenue of earning his dream job back.

So, when he ambushes Griffin in Ford’s Industries’ underground parking lot, Stance doesn’t give him a chance to speak.

“There were four,” he practically vomits. Griffin’s lips freeze halfway around a word before melting into a thin, considering line.

“Four people what?” Griffin, monotone, asks, and it’s all the in Stance needs.

“Four people fired,” he clarifies whisperingly. “After Grey Sloan’s Code Luna, there were four people fired—the two Delucas, Meredith Grey, and…”

“…And?” Griffin encourages, the corners of his lips arching up conspiratorially.

Stance mimes the plotting semper.

“And,” he continues, “a fourth year resident named Hannah Brody. And, from what I hear, the events of the Code Luna left her feeling pretty burned.”


	21. Month Six, Part 2: Backaches

“We need to talk, Bailey.”

Richard does not like giving orders like this to Bailey. Not anymore. She has long been chief—deservedly so—and Richard has grown accustomed to his role as mentor and advisor. But he needs her to listen to him and to hear him, and she does not so much as glance at him as he joins her at her side, keeping up with her very take-charge pace.

“It’s going to have wait, Richard,” Bailey replies absentmindedly. Her eyes are glued to an iPad she is holding out in front of her with one hand while the fingers of the other waltz across the glass surface in seamless legato steps.

“Well, this is _very_ time sensitive,” Richard insists.

“And I am _very_ busy,” Bailey rebuffs rapidly. “My chiefs of general and ortho have been down and out for five days and counting in what might turn out to be the longest heat on record, and a ten-story construction site just collapsed on top of dozens of construction workers. Do you know kind of injuries come out of a collapse like that? Broken bones and compromised internal organs. Kim and Wilson have stepped up big time, but I am still down two surgeons.”

“In a way, this relates to the chiefs and their number two’s,” Richard presses on. “The internship applicants—”

“The internship applicants?’ Bailey baulks, finally yanking her eyes away from the iPad to glare at him. “What do they have to do with anything? And what do you mean ‘applicants’? It’s the middle of June. The interns should be picked, vetted, and ready to start.”

“I was out of commission for four months, remember?” he sighs gruffly. “And during that time, Koracick decided to revamp the residency program. In addition to adding the so-called ‘mid-year track,’ he changed our hard application deadline to a rolling one.”

“A rolling deadline?” Bailey scoffs incredulously. “Seriously? Did he think we’d be constantly allowing new students to trickle in here and there? And exactly how many program tracks does he expect us to keep up with?”

Richard shrugs sharply.

“I can’t tell you that,” he says. “I guess he was concerned that the whole business with Meredith and Deluca would drastically deplete our number of applicants and thought the rolling deadline would increase the pool. And it did. The problem is it worked _too_ well—we have gotten hundreds of applications, Bailey, possibly thousands, and no one has reviewed or evaluated them—”

Abruptly, Bailey stops, her feet in perfect, graceful synchrony, while Richard falters, nearly tripping over himself as he tries to slow his body, inertia getting the better of him.

“Let me get this straight,” she drawls. “Fearing we wouldn’t get enough water in our cup, Koracick left the faucet running, and now the cup, the sink, and the damn kitchen are flooded, but he never called the plumber?”

“Metaphorically speaking?” Richard, bemused, quips. “Yes.”

“A mess, for sure, that needs to be mopped up, but what does it have to do with the chiefs, Wilson, and Kim—” Her lips fall close, and her eyes go distant as her mental calculator adds up the factors and figures. When the answer is reached, her gaze comes back as two brown lakes iced over.

“You think they’re all after the pack,” she pronounces flatly.

“Not all,” Richard amends, “but probably most. The reputation of our residency program is not what it used to be, and I hate to say it, but we’re not exactly considered a first-choice placement right now. But many of these applicants are at the top of their class at the top medical schools in the county—they could go anywhere, so why pick here?”

Bailey shakes her head fiercely.

“How would they know about the pack in the first place?” she argues. “We made everyone sign a non-disclosure agreement—”

“We both know that isn’t going to stop people from talking,” Richard admonishes patiently. “That non-disclosure is a liability shield for the hospital meant to divert blame in case someone runs their mouth to the wrong person. There are rumors, I am sure, flying around all over the place.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Bailey sneers. “Who chooses their residency—the foundation of their medical career—based on a rumor?”

“Surgeons,” Richards answers ruefully. “People who like to cut open the human body and uncover its secrets. People who thrive on intrigue and solving mysteries. People who want to improve the well-being of all humanity by coming up with the next great medical innovation. …And people who are selfish and seek personal gain.”

“You mean people like the Delucas,” groans Bailey, “and like Altman.”

“A-altman?” Richard strutters, and Bailey glares at him exasperatedly.

“I am not blind,” she snaps. “You think I haven’t noticed how she has been hovering around Schmitt or how she is being awfully territorial over him? If Schmitt was a fourth- or fifth-year on the precipice of his choosing specialty, the attention would make perfect sense. But he is an _intern_ , a minor cog in a much larger machine. As an attending and department chief, she should barely know he exists. It’s off-putting, the way she’s acting, and I’ve _noticed_.”

Richard has noticed too, but, honestly, he hadn’t thought Bailey had. He remembers how much can slip by when you are the Chief of Surgery. You have to keep your eye on the big picture, ever mindful of the hospital’s future, and, to that end, have to walk the tightrope strung between bureaucracy and empathy. When you are so high up, your attention so divided, it is easy to lose sight of the little details and needs of your vast staff.

In this, Bailey has surpassed him, better juggling all the balls under her responsibility while walking that high, thin rope.

“This is what we are going to do,” Bailey announces. “We have a bummer crop of prospective residents? Fine, might as well take advantage of it. I want you to create a panel and set minimum of criteria for consideration. Any and all applications that don’t meet those criteria need to be culled. Of those left, find out who is still actually looking for placement. Given how late it is in the game, I am sure a portion have accepted offers elsewhere. That should it get down to a manageable number that we can interview. And this all needs to happen yesterday.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Richard assures, “but how do we address the fact that people with ulterior motives might still get in?”

“We can’t,” Bailey says readily. Her eyes are already sailing back to her iPad. “Chances are one or two of them are going to get in, if not more. But the pack isn’t made of stupid people— _we_ handpicked them after all—and they aren’t going to be easily fooled. Besides, wanting to be pack doesn’t make you pack. Genuine trust and attachment have to exist, and if someone is coming to this hospital solely for that purpose, then they’re going to have work for it. I see no reason not to make use of their hard work in the meantime.”

Then, she is charging forward, not bothering with a goodbye, and why should she, Richard muses. She has spoken and now must move on to emergencies more deserving of her attention. The matter has been left in Richard’s capable hands, and he will ensure that her reliance is not misplaced. He may not be chief anymore, but having carried the burden once himself, he won’t let her shoulder it alone. 

Dyugen would never describe herself as a freak, but she is far from a prude. She has had just as much as fun as the next woman, possibly a little bit more, yet her body has never before done the things it has done the last five days. Her limbs have performed positions that she hadn’t had so much as an inkling of prior to Link carrying her over the den’s threshold, and the novelty is taking a steep toll on her exhausted muscles.

“I… I don’t think I can move,” she gasps. She tries flexing her fingers experimentally and only manages to fumble her fingertips along the edge of her nest, a haphazardly constructed mound of red bedsheets. “Yep, can’t move.”

“That’s all right,” Link murmurs into her bare shoulder. “I can, and whatever you need, I’ll get it for you.”

“You can?” she cries, half laughing. “Even after doing _that_ with your….never mind, water would be nice, please.” Grinning, Link plants an exuberant kiss on her slick skin.

“Then water you shall have.” 

He, completely naked, bounces up from the bed and, strolling across industrial, patterned carpet, crouches down before a mini-bar as he swings its door open. The mini-bar, in Dyugen’s opinion, is one of the many things that make the den look like a decently priced hotel room. When they first arrived almost week ago, she had been consciousness enough to note that there is a main room much like a lobby, wide and painted in warm colors, ample seating scattered throughout. 

And beyond the main room, the actual den of the all-inclusive “den,” are smaller bedrooms like the one she and Link are currently inhabiting that have proven adequate spaces for nests. The standard thirteen by twenty-five feet, the room is complete with a queen-sized bed, two nightstands, and a private bathroom. There is even a landline that they discovered on the second day that directly connects to the kitchen, allowing for room service to be ordered whenever needed. Dyugen is fairly certain that “whenever” had turned out to be infrequent. 

She and Link had been busy—very busy—as her back muscles spitefully remind her as she manages to roll to her side.

“Here you go,” Link says as he sits down on the bed’s edge and hands her a clear bottle of water. It is cool and heavy against her palm, and its cap has already been twisted off, a touch of thoughtfulness that coxes a smile onto Dyugen’s face as she tilts the bottle’s rim to her lips.

“Thank you.” While she drinks greedily, Link eases back down beside her, propping his weight up on his corded forearm and elbow.

“You think it’s over?” he queries softly.

“Yes,” she sighs, coming up for air, “because there is no way you did not knock me up.”

“Really? Even with you on birth control?” Taking another swig, she chuckles resignedly.

“I think we can blame my birth control for how long it lasted,” she deduces. “I’ve never had a heat last _five_ days. The most plausible explanation is that my body needed more time to work it out of my system. I am pretty sure we can conclude that for a mated omega in heat, it’s pregnancy or bust.”

Link inhales tightly.

“Ok,” he squeaks on the exhale. “Ok.”

His blue eyes swell uncertainly as they tiptoe to the flat, smooth expanse of her bronze stomach. Her smile collapses in on itself millimeter by millimeter.

“I know it’s a lot,” she says quietly. “You just had a kid you didn’t necessarily plan for, and now you’re going to have another baby you weren’t expecting with a mate you weren’t looking for. I would get it if it’s too much.”

She hurts right now, every muscle and ligament having repeatedly tested its flexibility, but she will recover and get up from this bed. She will grit through the ache, get up, and move forward, because she refuses to wallow in anything. It would be easier—so much easier—to have someone to lean on, but a partner who feels like they are being dragged along out of obligation is only dead weight. Dyugen is a grown woman—she can fend for herself. And she will fend for her child…alone, if she has to.

Sighing again, Link’s face turns grave, not unlike the pensive expression of _The Thinker_ , and he gingerly takes the water bottle from her. He reaches his arm over her to place it on her nightstand and then settles his large hand on the curve of her hip.

“Dyugen,” he murmurs breathily, “I don’t need or want an out. Yeah, it’s going to be an adjustment, but I am going to be there for my kids, D.J. and our baby.”

“..Babies,” Dyugen mumbles. Link blinks.

“What?”

“…Twins,” she explains reluctantly, “run in my family. My grandmother had a twin, my mom has a twin, my brother and I are twins, and my brother’s two youngest are twins. So, we might be having twins.”

Link’s Adam’s apple bobs, but he grins toothily nonetheless.

“Okay, bab _ies_ ,” he repeats. “I am not going anywhere. Besides, the more time I spend with you—” His fingers slide along the dip of her hip into her waist and ascend the flare of her ribcage to the summit of her breast. “—the more I think the universe just might know what it’s doing.”

Blood rushes to Dyugen’s cheeks, and her lower abdomen twinges pleasurably. Oh, if only she could move….

“I know we have to leave this room eventually,” Link says, his grin turning the shade of seduction, “but we don’t have to get up from this bed _quite_ yet.”

“No, we don’t,” Dyugen replies huskily, “mostly because I can’t move.”

Link’s grin is the stuff of red wine and dark chocolate.

“Oh, well, in that case, we might as well make good use of the time.”

Her back muscles—all her muscles—are going to get their retribution for the extra...activity she is about put them through, yet, as Link leans closer, his golden strands tickling her forehead, she finds she is more than willing to pay the price.

At first, Levi had been relieved when he realized that his pregnancy weight is all belly. It will be easier to shed the extra pounds after he gives birth, he had thought happily to himself, because he wanted to be a blimp for as little time as possible. But Dr. Evans hadn’t been pleased at all.

“You’re underweight, Levi,” he had warned, “for where you are in your pregnancy. You should weigh at least ten more pounds.”

Admittedly, it was not guidance Levi had taken very seriously. Truthfully, he hadn’t wanted to hear it, but now, as he stands and tries to concentrate on the chart of the last patient of the night, his focus is derailed by the intense straining of his obliques and latissimus dorsi. They are doing the best they can to support the tremendous load he is carrying at the front of his body, but they don’t have much sustain them. If he had more fat, then his muscles would have more energy stores to draw upon, and perhaps he wouldn’t be in as much pain as he is now. Cursed vanity.

“What’s wrong with this picture?”

Tiredly, Levi lifts his head to find Jo leaning against the desk of the nurse’s station, but she is not talking to him. Rather, she is glaring down at the bowed, blonde head of Hartford, who is sitting behind the desk and studying something on her phone so intensely that she seemingly doesn’t hear Jo. Her upper lip curling in disgust, Jo loudly taps the desk, and Hartford springs up, her blue-green irises as wide as tortoise shells.

“Yes, Dr. Wilson?” Hartford asks, smiling plastically. Jo shifts her lower jaw left and then right, and Schmitt can tell she is choking back a crueler retort than what she ultimately choses to say.

“Do you have some kind of disability, Hartford,” Jo grounds out, “that requires you to sit at certain intervals?”

“Uh,” Hartford replies hesitantly, “n-no—”

“Why, then,” Jo interrupts, “are _you_ sitting while the _very_ pregnant person in front of you is standing?”

Blonde wheat waves flying, Hartford whips her head to Levi.

“Oh my God!” she cries. “Schmitt, I am so sorry! I swear, I didn’t see you—”

“Dr. Kim is headed this way,” Jo clucks, “and, trust me, he isn’t going to like this picture.” Immediately, Hartford scrambles to her feet and practically sprints from out behind the desk.

“I’m really sorry,” she says again to Levi as she goes. “I really didn’t see you.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Levi tells Jo once Hartford is gone, but Jo jabs a pointer finger at the freshly vacated chair.

“ _Sit_ , Schmitt.”

His back aching, Levi doesn’t protest and hobbles to the chair before bracing its armrests with his palms and slowly sinking into the seat. He groans gratefully and lets his head fall back.

“Why are you still here?” Jo demands, crossing her arms.

“I, uh, work here?” Levi says tenuously.

“Why haven’t you gone home?” Jo rephrases, rolling her eyes. “Your shift ended hours ago. Have you even eaten yet?”

“Altman asked me to stay,” he replies as he lifts his head up wearily. “She had back-to-back surgeries today and was behind on her charts. I felt bad for blowing her service off last week, so I said I’d help.”

“You didn’t blow anything off,” Jo points out. “A patient asked for you, and we accommodated that patient. As a chief and attending, Altman should understand that and shouldn’t be pressuring you to put your health at risk—”

“My health isn’t—”

“You’re pregnant, Levi,” Jo maintains. Her doe brown eyes flash anxiously as she leans over the desk. “And you have a pre-existing heart condition. You need to rest and eat regularly, especially since you’re underweight as it is. You need to take of yourself, so you can take care of Naava. So you can tell Altman or anyone else ‘no’ when you need to say ‘no.’”

“It really wasn’t a big deal, Jo—”

“You spent ten hours today helping me keep General afloat,” she asserts. “It was already past time for you to go then, and here we are, an additional _three_ hours later. You’re dead on your feet! When Kim gets here, he’ll—”

“—take you home.”

It is astoundingly unfair how absolutely devastatingly handsome Nico still is after a fourteen-hour shift. His hair has come loose from the gel he had used to shape it earlier that morning, and it now hangs in the gentlest wave around his ears and at fringes of his dark eyelashes. As depleted as he is, Levi musters the energy to admire his towering, statuesque figure as he steps beside the chair and places a firm hand on the top of Levi’s greasy curls.

“Damn straight you’re taking him,” Jo concurs vehemently. “Take him home, feed him, and put him to bed.”

“I’m not a child,” Levi grumbles.

“No, but you’re carrying one,” she reminds him. “So let hubby here took you home. Now, if you excuse me, I am going to find Altman and rip her a new one.”

“Wait, no, Jo—” Levi tries, but she is already speeding away. Nico smirks and strokes the back of Levi’s head.

“Let her go,” he says. “Because if isn’t her, it’s going to be me, and she will be a lot nicer about.”

“I don’t need defending,” Levi pouts. “I am an intern. We are supposed to be overworked. I don’t want to be treated differently—”

“But you _are_ different, Levi,” Nico sighs. “You’re pregnant. You need to slow down, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s self-care and caring for the baby. You have the right to ask for what you need, and Altman shouldn’t make you feel like you don’t.”

Levi does not reply. He is too drained to argue anymore, and, deep down, he can admit that his husband is right. He can’t keep plowing ahead as if nothing about his body has changed. He needs to slow down and start cutting back on his hours. He should sleep more and eat more and gain more weight, if not for his own sake, then for his daughter’s. Because whatever pain he feels now—his overburdened muscles, the fear of inferiority or incompetency—it would all amount to nothing in the face of what he would suffer if something happened to her. 


	22. Month Six, Part 3: Hotflash

“Peach sorbet?” Jackson reads over Nico’s shoulder. “That sounds _so_ refreshing.” Nodding, Nico shuffles the paint swatches of coral pink shades until they lie in a neat stack on the lounge table. After a long debate and three rounds of unsolicited input from both of their mothers, Levi and Nico have settled on coral for their daughter’s nursery. Now it is only a matter of deciding on the specific shade, and peach sorbet is the clear favorite, but drawing out the deliberation gives Nico something to focus on other than the vampiric heat that has Seattle in the grip of its fangs.

“Still hot enough to fry bacon on the concrete out there?” Nico asks.

“You could roast a whole pig in the ambulance bay without a fire pit,” Jackson bemoans. He dabs the back of his neck, though Nico doubts it does much good, as Jackson’s palm comes back visibly slick with a sheen of sweat. It is that kind of heat out there, the sticky, relentless sort that stalks you inside and sucks the moisture out of you until you are a dragging husk of flesh. The hospital has air conditioning, of course, but for a building that perpetually tends toward cold, most of its rooms are stuffy today. Maybe the generators can’t keep up—Nico has heard that, between the heat wave choking the nation’s Western half and the wildfires charring its coastline, the region’s power grid has been pushed up to the edge of its breaking point. Some cities have been subjected to rolling blackouts to conserve power, and while Seattle is not on the list, Nico had stuffed no less than five iced bottles into Levi’s backpack that morning to ensure his mate wouldn’t be without water even if he found himself without A/C.

“You know,” Jackson says as he flops down across from Nico, “while it is unbearable, I didn’t think it’s just the heat that is making me soak through my scrubs. …I am supposed to meet Dahlia’s family tonight.”

“Meeting the parents,” Nico murmurs, “that’s a big step.”

“It’s a scary-as-hell step,” Jackson sighs slouching. “She has all but said that her dad is going to hate me.”

“Hate you? But why?” Jackson scoffs tiredly.

“Well, let’s count the reasons. One, I don’t share his faith. Two, I am divorced. Three, I have a kid. Four, I am in position of authority over his daughter, so it could be argued I am taking advantage of her. Five, I am old—”

“You’re not old.”

“Fine,” Jackson concedes petulantly, “I am _older_ than her, enough to raise an eyebrow. I mean, I get it. If I were in his shoes, and Harriet was bringing a guy like me home, I wouldn’t like him either. My track record isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for a successful, lasting relationship.”

Leaning back in his seat, Nico crosses his arms contemplatively.

“Isn’t that mindset a little…patriarchal?” Nico challenges. “By all accounts, Dahlia is an intelligent adult capable of making her own decisions. That includes her choice of partner. Don’t get me wrong—I am not trying to speak on anyone else’s culture, and maybe it’s different for her family, but _you_ should at least respect Dahlia’s decision. If she really thought the night was doomed to end in disaster, she wouldn’t take you home in the first place. Trust that she knows what she’s doing. Trust _her_.”

Jackson’s lips curve into a half-smile as he tilts his head thoughtfully to the side.

“Is that how it was for you and Schmitt?” he queries. “When you met his mom?” Nico chuckles indulgently and shrugs.

“It wasn’t planned,” he confesses. “But, looking back, I think Levi wanted to show me he was ready to put his all into us. I was not in a great place, and him claiming me in a way put me in a better one.”

“Well, let’s hope me meeting Dahlia’s dad goes half as well as that.”

“Oh no,” Nico says with mock gravity. “Let’s hope that it goes as twice as well. His mom hated me all the way up to the Code Luna. She thought I was corrupting her baby boy.”

Jackson’s face collapses, and Nico’s breaks into a wide, teasing grin. There is a laugh, too, in his throat that is bubbling up like lava nearing a volcano’s rim, only to lose steam and slip back down as Jo treads cautiously into the lounge, her mouth a frown drawn as tightly as a miser’s purse strings.

“Jo,” Jackson greets concernedly, “what is it?”

Her light brown eyes flit anxiously from Jackson to Nico like bees uncertain about on which bloom to land.

“Do you have anything sharp or stabby on you right now?” she asks abruptly. “Scalpels, pens, protractors—”

“Why would we have protractors—”

“Just answer the question!” Jo demands. Simultaneously, Nico and Jackson sit up to attention and shake their heads.

“No, we don’t,” Nico answers, his eyes narrowing. “But why are you afraid that we might want to stab someone?”

Jo’s tongue flicks out and swipes the length of her upper lip.

“…There was a high school baseball game,” she begins. “It should have been canceled with this damn heat, but it was a championship or semi-final or whatever. Point is, it went on, and so there were kids on the field and people in the stands when an abstract art installation made completely of giant concrete balls fell apart and rolled across said field and stands.”

“Oh God!” Jackson cries. 

“Yeah, I hear it wasn’t pretty,” Jo continues. She begins to wring her hands, a motion that sends a ripple of nausea through Nico’s gut. “There were so many injuries that they decided to set up triage on site. Altman was in charge…”

Jo’s hands still as she raises her eyes and steadies her gaze.

“…and she took all the interns with her.”

The cacophony of his chair clattering to the floor assaults his ears before Nico even realizes that he has stood.

“Altman took my heavily pregnant mate out in _three-degree_ heat?” he hisses. His breath is shortening, his blood surging. The alpha rage is seeping in like a drop of ebony ink on white cotton fibers. 

“Dahlia too?” Jackson growls. His rise is slower, but his timbre matches Nico’s note for note. “Where she is?”

“You promise you have nothing sharp?” Jo asks again. Nico bares his teeth, an archaic instinct left over from an era when the human canines were longer. Sharper.

“Where,” Nico snarls. “Are. They.”

“Qadri is in the ER,” Jo at last divulges, “getting fluids. She’s dehydrated but fine. Levi, though…”

Nico knows then that it isn’t good, because Jo never refers to Levi by his given name without solemnity behind it, and as she speaks, the stain of rage sinks deeper and deeper until his vision is reduced to seething black.

Kim comes roaring into the Labor and Delivery wing as the fire whirl Caleb fully expects him to be, which makes him infinitely grateful that the floor charge nurse had worked her magic to ensure Levi has a private room. The less people in Kim’s path the better, because Caleb can’t soften the harsh sight that has Kim gripping the door frame of the room like life support:

Levi prone on a hospital bed, his rounded belly a hill set atop a too thin plain, and stripped down to nothing save the light bedsheet settled around his hips like a yellow lake pooling at a mountain’s base. An oxygen mask obscures his face, while an IV tube snakes up and out of his arm like a foreign parasite. There is also the tangle of electrode wires that attach to machines that mimic the heartbeat of both bearer and baby.

It would be too much for the staunchest of stomachs, let alone that of a mate and father. Caleb can only withstand it thanks to repetition. Being an obstetrician is a career path mostly demarked by joy, its landmarks the new lives you usher into the world, but joy is only known as joy in the context of sorrow, and life is life as distinguished by death. He has witnessed lives lost before they have even begun and bearers ripe with child wither to wasted, decaying vines. And it does look a lot like the way Levi looks now, an absurd parody of what should be the height of fertility and vitality. Kim, too, is the picture of how all sires look as they stare down everything precious they are about to lose. He stumbles to the bed as his quaking hands reach for any part of Levi he can hold onto. A hand. A fistful of curls.

Thankfully, today won’t be one of those days that ends in wails and weeps and lost sleep over lost souls.

“I don’t have to tell you,” Caleb begins, “just how dangerous heatstroke can be for anyone but especially pregnant persons. His temperature was a hundred and three when they brought him in, so we had to give him a cold bath. But his temperature is back down to normal now and has been holding steady. We are also giving him fluids, and, while we do want to keep a close eye on him and baby for the next twenty-four hours, I am confident that they are _both_ going to be okay.”

Kim’s rich brown eyes are two drifting stars wondering the expanse of his mate’s body, and, settling on Levi’s face, they quiver, threatening to break apart into teary stardust.

“…Th-…Thank you,” he pushes through a thick swallow. 

“No need,” Caleb assures. “It’s what I am here for. That, and to provide medical advice. To that end, I recommend that Levi consider working part-time from now until he goes on paternity leave. Stress isn’t good for him or the baby, and I can tell he’s not eating enough. If this keeps up, he might have to go on bed rest.”

“We just talked about this the other night,” Kim mutters, more to himself than to Caleb. “Levi said he was going to talk to Bailey and Webber about his schedule. He was going to start cutting back next month. This never should have happened!”

“No, it shouldn’t have,” Caleb agrees. “And it’s not Levi’s fault that it did. Not really.” Kim’s lips peel back in an animalistic snarl.

“No, it’s _Altman’s_.” Patiently, Caleb folds his hands in front him, neither smothering nor fanning Kim’s fury.

“I will ask a nurse to bring a few extra blankets.” He nods toward a leather recliner in the far corner of the room. “I hear sleeping on that is a lot more comfortable than on one of the cots.”

This gentle recommendation has the desired effect, and Kim’s anger disappears, folded and tucked away like a wool comforter not needed until winter comes around again. His attention is now being lathered upon Levi and their child, one of his hands lifting to tenderly caress the summit of his mate’s belly.

Smiling, Caleb backtracks out of the room. He has seen scenes like this before too, snapshots of family intimacies. He sees them but he does not take them or take part in them. They are distant vistas he happens past from the road he is on, and he watches them go by, beautiful and compelling, and then leaves them behind to blossom in private.

Over the years, Owen has learned the varying degrees of Bailey’s wrath. He has heard her rage every which way past Sunday, and, frankly, the razor blade of her tirades has dulled to a butterknife. Instead, it is her silence he has learned to fear. That brooding, building silence—the ominous calm before the hurricane slams into the shore.

And Bailey is that devastating silence now. She is not even looking at him and Teddy, her body half twisted in her seat so that she is facing the wall. The only sound in the sizable office is the drumming of her fingers along the glass top of her desk, a dull _th-ud, -ud, -ud, -ud_. 

Teddy fidgets, her knee bouncing violently on her raised toes. She has never done well with silence, and, like an overstuffed cumulonimbus, her mouth breaks wide open.

“Bailey,” she says anxiously. “Bailey, I—”

A single, raised finger halts the downpour. The drumming stops, the dying of thunder right before the lightning strikes.

Slowly, dreadfully slowly, Bailey swivels her chair around and forward.

“If I hadn’t operated beside each of you,” she murmurs flatly, “I would not believe either one of you was a doctor."

“Bailey,” Teddy tries again, and the Chief of Surgery’s glare is a hatchet thrown with a gladiator’s might. It slices into its target, sinks in, and stays there.

“I could explain away,” she grinds, her voice a millstone at work, “why you took most of the interns. It was a large scene, many hands were needed on deck, and it’s good experience for them. But Schmitt should never have been out there. He’s six-months pregnant and has a known propensity for stress, which is not good for the heart condition _you_ diagnosed him with. At a minimum, when he asked for a break and when the other residents voiced concern, you should’ve sent him into the nearest building with water, which coincidentally you didn’t think to bring with you. Schmitt did, though, which is properly the only reason the rest of them didn’t pass out from dehydration.”

“Bailey,” Owen dares to interject, “the operation was put together very quickly—”

The hatchet is now hurled at him.

“Two veterans who have served in _desert war zones_ do not get to use the emergency nature of the situation as an excuse,” Bailey cuts off. She steeples her fingers and glowers over their point. “I don’t want to hear an excuse or an explanation. I know all I need to know—” Her glare smacks Teddy across the cheek. “I know your personal life is something of a shit show right now, but you leave that mess at home. You do not track it into my hospital. You do not abuse your position of power in an idiotic plot to clean it up.”

Owen’s cheeks flush with more than enough indignity for both him and Teddy, but Bailey’s eyes are rearing back to him, and his words of protest clog in his throat.

“And you,” she spits, “were so focused on punishing her by not speaking to her that you utterly failed to be the voice of reason. _You_ are the Chief of Trauma, and this operation was ultimately _your_ responsibility. So you are as much to blame for the fact that my first years are currently spending their afternoon in the ER as patients and not doctors. I should suspend both of you and maybe even fire you—”

“Bailey!” Teddy cries, their chief’s name trailing off as Bailey separates her hands and settles them onto the chair’s armrests.

“Lucky for you,” she drones, “this hospital can’t afford to be down two chiefs right now. Besides, once Kim’s mother learns about this, she will probably take you to the cleaner’s, and God only knows what the Bonding Bureau will do, so no suspension. But until you learn how to keep your personal mess outside the walls of this hospital, you lose the privilege of teaching. Residents, from first year to fifth, will not be assigned to your services until I say otherwise. They will continue to work under attendings in your departments, but they are hands off for you.”

“This is a _teaching_ hospital, Bailey,” Teddy replies incredulously. “Interns and residents are integral to us getting our work done—”

“Something you should’ve thought of before dragging them out unprepared into a killer heatwave,” Bailey snaps. “You demonstrated today that you care more about yourself than your students. So you will not have students.”

“But Bailey—”

“This is not a negotiation, Dr. Altman,” announces Bailey. Finality hammers home each and every word. “You still have your job and your title, which I could have stripped from you. After all, Cardio has two heads when it really only needs one. So take the consolation that you don’t deserve and get out of my office. Now.”

With that, Bailey falls silent again, and Owen knows that this is not the end of the hurricane but merely the eye. So, he stands, grabbing Teddy’s elbow on his way up, and drags her behind him as he swims for the door and the safer shore on the other side.

“Can you believe her?” Teddy fumes once Bailey’s office is a speck on the horizon. “She didn’t let us say two words! How are we supposed to explain—”

Owen’s fingers fall away from her. It occurs to him, suddenly, that she is drowning, flaying, panicking, and she will take him down with her if he lets her.

He can’t save her from herself, and that newfound knowledge unlocks the floodgates.

“Explain what, Teddy?” he, pained, asks. “What precisely did she say that was wrong? You neglected to set up a cooling station, which was equally as essential as triaging wounds. You didn’t implement a break system to ensure our people stayed safe and healthy. You dragged a heavily pregnant intern—who doesn’t feel empowered to tell you, a department chief and attending, ‘no’—into dangerous, deadly heat. When others tried to tell you what a disastrous idea that was, you belittled and dismissed them. And I was so preoccupied with staying the hell away from you that I didn’t see any of this until it was over and done.”

Teddy looks as if he has just double-punched her _one-two_ to the heart.

“Owen—”

“It’s not Schmitt’s job to fix what _you_ broke,” he says plainly. “He is not your magic wand or a genie lamp. He is not a tool to use, and if you think he is, then Bailey’s right—You can’t be trusted with the most vulnerable of our field. I mean, Teddy…you’re a mother! You know what it is like to carry another life within you. How could you do what you did to another bearer?”

Teddy is opening her mouth, a miniature, churning Charybdis threatening to suck him in, so Owen turns and leaves before she has a chance to spin her siren song. 

He can’t save her, so he chooses to save himself.

Franklin, Arizona is hot. Not humid hot. Not sometimes hot. Not moderately hot. Just straight, sadistically hot. Hailing from a cooler place, Hannah Brody has not gotten use to its atmosphere despite having now lived here over half a year. There is no place she can go to escape the heat. It is everywhere, day and night, inside and out, but stepping outside of St. Agatha’s Tri-County Hospital provides the illusion of relief. Exiting the side door, she can pretend that she is leaving, jetting off to somewhere cooler and never coming back.

But the reality is she never goes farther than the sad excuse for a rock garden on the east side of St. Agatha’s campus. The garden exists to lend beauty to an otherwise gray slab of concrete in the middle of nowhere, but it itself is a muddle monotony of color, cacti and aloe plants paling to pallid pea-green under the constant brushstrokes of sun. 

That is why the handsomely aging man, dressed in a tailored suit of cream-white designed for balmier weather, stands out so vividly that Hannah nearly mistakes him for a mirage. But then he speaks with a rattlesnake’s drawl, and she knows he is all too real.

“Dr. Brody,” he salutes, and it is not a question or request for confirmation. He knows who she is, and she does not care for the disadvantage at which that puts her.

“Who are you?” she demands, not bothering with anything that could pass for civility. To his credit, the stranger is unfazed and flashes her a shark’s grin.

“Griffin Ford,” he answers, and she snorts.

“And what brings a tech tycoon to Armpit, Arizona?”

“You.”

Hands in his pockets, he draws a little nearer, gravel and sand crunching and shifting beneath his sockless loafers, and, lazily, he tosses a glance at the gray, flat building behind her.

“The Bonding Bureau can really be a bitch, can’t they?” he muses. “They maintain a registry most people never hear a hint about unless they’re on it—a registry of people they deem ‘unfit’ to care for weak and at-risk people. Makes it difficult to find a decent job in a decent place, doesn’t it, especially if your former employer declines to give you references? All you are really left with are places as desperate for employees as you are desperate for work.”

The fingers of Brody’s right hand begin to ache, an old battle wound flaring up and reminding her of all she has been robbed.

“What do you want?” she sneers. Ford’s smile only grows in its charismatic monstrosity.

“My reach, admittedly, isn’t as extensive as the BB’s,” he replies, “but I do have influence to wield. I can help you find a residency somewhere more…civilized. And cooler.”

Suspicious, Hannah takes a step toward him.

“ _What_ ,” she enunciates sharply, “do you want?”

“Names,” he tells her finally. “Names of the mated couple at Grey Sloan.”

Hannah does not think about all the ways providing such information could ultimately backfire on her. She does not consider that the same extensive reach of the BB that has thrown her away into exile could trace the leak to her regardless of where she ends up. She does not realize she has important things to lose yet—honor, pride, self-respect.

No, instead, she thinks about the heat that has no beginning or end. She recalls all the posts that still pop up in her social media feed, posts that prove her old life has gone on without her, filled in her absence as easily as hot cement poured into a shallow pothole. She considers all the places she’d rather be right now than Franklin, Arizona.

“It needs to be a city by the sea,” she says, “and still have white Christmases and leaves that change in the Fall.”

“Deal,” Ford agrees without a beat, but even as her tongue unloads the words he has come all this way to hear, she feels it, the scorpion’s kiss of _wrong_. She is making the wrong move, but it is too late.

The heat has gotten the best of her.


End file.
